New FM to lead Thai team to temple talks
By Bangkok Post and Reuters
Former prime minister Anand Panyarachun, left, is greeted yesterday by social critic Thirayuth Boonmi at a forum on democracy organised to remember the Oct 14, 1973 uprising in Bangkok. |
The appointment of Tej Bunnag as new foreign minister is a blessing for the government, giving its image a much-needed boost, said former prime minister Anand Panyarachun.
"It is the government's good luck to have Mr Tej as foreign minister. He could restore the government's image," said Mr Anand, who was once permanent secretary at the Foreign Ministry.
His Majesty the King issued a royal command appointing Mr Tej, former permanent secretary for foreign affairs, as foreign minister yesterday.
Mr Anand said Mr Tej has good knowledge and background in the area, and is an outstanding foreign ministry senior official.
However, he declined to comment on whether Mr Tej could help solve the dispute between Thailand and Cambodia over the 4.6sqkm overlapping area surrounding Preah Vihear temple.
"He comes [being appointed as foreign minister] in unusual circumstances and he has to cope with prolonged problems made in the past," Mr Anand said.
Mr Tej's first mission is to lead Thai negotiators to the Siem Reap meeting to end the border row with Cambodia tomorrow.
He is not in the country at present.
He is expected to return to Thailand today to pledge allegiance to the King before taking office.
Mr Tej said by telephone that he had been notified of the appointment. He would get a briefing at the Foreign Affairs Ministry today.
He said he was well acquainted with Cambodian Foreign Minister Hor Namhong.
Supreme Commander Gen Boonsrang Niempradit said the armed forces would send Niphat Thonglek, director-general of the Border Affairs Department, and Lt-Gen Dan Meechu-at, head of the Survey Department, to join Mr Tej's delegation to the meeting with his Cambodian counterpart.
Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej and the opposition Democrat party leader Abhisit Vejjajiva said they believed that the negotiations could yield a positive result because Cambodia's election would end today.
In Cambodia, thousands of migrant workers left the Cambodian capital yesterday for their hometowns and villages to cast their votes in a general election today overshadowed by the temple row.
Buses and pick-up trucks leaving Phnom Penh were packed as Cambodia enjoyed a "cooling off" day on the eve of voting in a poll almost certain to give another five-year term to Hun Sen, prime minister for the last 23 years.
Hun Sen, who has run Cambodia since 1985, is Asia's longest-serving leader. His reputation as a strongman who intimidates rivals has served him well, with voters rallying around the leader as Cambodian troops faced off with Thai soldier over contested land near the temple.
People show strong enthusiasm to vote, said Tep Nitha, of Cambodia's National Election Committee.
Campaigning was more orderly than Cambodia's previous exercises in a democracy created by the United Nations in the early 1990s to bring an end to more than two decades of war and upheaval, including the Khmer Rouge "Killing Fields".
Many of Cambodia's 8.1 million voters said they were concentrating on more practical matters, such as choosing a government to oversee a booming economy now threatened by soaring inflation.
"This is a very important day. We have to choose a good leader to create more jobs for us," Svay Sokha, a 24-year-old garment worker, said as she and her friends waited for a bus to the eastern province of Kampong Thom.
Hun Sen's former communist, but now firmly free-market Cambodian People's Party (CPP) is virtually assured of victory, thanks in large part to near double-digit annual economic growth in the past five years.
Most analysts expect the CPP to win an outright majority in the 123-seat parliament.
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