It is almost certain that there will be a change of leadership at the Metropolitan Police Bureau (MPB) in an upcoming annual reshuffle.
Incumbent MPB commissioner Sriwara Rangsipramanakul is expected to be made an assistant national police chief when the Police Commission meets in the first week of August. This will compensate Pol Lt Gen Sriwara for the loss of opportunity in receiving a better promotion in recent years.
Sriwara: Next promotion in sight.
The position of MPB chief, according to political pundits, is second in strategic importance to the national police chief. He has the entire police force in the capital, the seat of government and the nerve centre of business, under his control.
It is widely accepted that the officer at the helm at the MPB stands a good chance of being considered for the top police post. An officer who has overseen the MPB could see himself retiring, at the very least, as a deputy national police chief.
So when it comes to the appointment of a new city police chief, the powers-that-be prefer to have a say in the matter.
Back in 1997 then prime minister Chavalit Yongchaiyudh was known to have endorsed the appointment of Pol Maj Gen Thawee Thiprat, who had close ties with then deputy prime minister Chalerm Yubamrung, as the MPB chief.
A year later when Chuan Leekpai took power, the Democrat Party-led government picked Wannarat Kotcharat, who was the Police Region 8 chief, for the post, a move seen as a slap in the face for Mr Chalerm who was reported to have said beforehand that Pol Lt Gen Wannarat was a Democrat and had him transferred to Police Region 8. The former Democrat leader was known to trust Pol Lt Gen Wannarat and supported the police officer’s fast-track promotion.
During his tenure as premier, Thaksin Shinawatra solved a dispute between two police classmates, Pol Maj Gen Wongkot Maneerin and Pol Lt Gen Chumpol Munmai, both of whom were vying for the MPB job, by awarding the top city police post to Pol Maj Gen Damrongsak Nilkhuha.
The job was later given to Pol Maj Gen Thanee Somboonsap, a non-cadet police officer, to keep the rift from re-emerging. In 2008, the government of the day decided to support his classmate Pol Maj Gen Suchart Muenkaew as MPB chief. At that time Pol Maj Gen Wongkot and Pol Lt Gen Chumpol were promoted to full general.
In recent years, the MPB chief post was thrust back into the limelight when Pol Lt Gen Kamronwit Thoopkrachang came along during the Yingluck Shinawatra administration. His handling of the anti-Yingluck demonstrations and his recent arrest at Narita airport in Tokyo on firearms-related charges have made Pol Lt Gen Kamronwit the most controversial MPB commissioner so far.
After the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) rose to power, the MPB undoubtedly had to undergo drastic change.
Pol Lt Gen Sriwara is known to be close to NCPO strongman Prawit Wongsuwan and he would have Gen Prawit to thank if his much-anticipated promotion to assistant national police chief comes true.
If Pol Lt Gen Sriwara is made assistant national police chief, his deputy, Pol Maj Gen Tawitchart Palasak, should emerge as the strongest candidate in the race for the city post, in part due to his close connections with the Wongsuwon family, both Gen Prawit and former national police chief Patcharawat Wongsuwon, who is Gen Prawit’s younger brother.
Speculation won’t die
Rumour, speculation and prediction have the media in a feeding frenzy over a cabinet reshuffle, with a diverse range of names popping up that are putting Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha in a spot of bother.
Chatchai: Economic mess to clean up.
For political observers, it is an unusual occurrence for a coup-backed cabinet to be entertaining the idea of a shake-up, especially after the government has been up and running for quite some time.
Military-installed governments of the past typically would not switch ministers, but then most did not remain in office for so long that they felt compelled to bring in new faces to the cabinet. Post-coup governments would set up a cabinet which stayed in power without change until a general election was called.
However, the current government is not your ordinary, run-of-the-mill post-coup administration.
First, Gen Prayut, leader of the National Council for Peace and Order, has taken the seat of prime minister with a clear blueprint for a national administration that specifies what will be done and when. This includes roughly when the next general election will take place, although that has now been deferred to take in the referendum on the new constitution.
So there is now talk of a Prayut II cabinet taking shape, focusing on the economic ministers who might be shown the door and replaced by people with a less conservative stand on policies that can improve the health of the economy.
Although Gen Prayut has for many days now rebutted the reshuffle speculation, the issue has refused to go away.
However, the reshuffle conjecture is taking a new turn and is centring on how many military top brass occupying ministerial posts will be ousted.
The government has been in office long enough for the ministers to be assessed on how well they have done their jobs, even as pressure appears to be growing within the NCPO’s ranks to increase the quota of ministers in uniform.
But any hope of more military officers marching into the cabinet room has been dashed by Gen Prayut himself who has ruled out expanding the ministerial quota to accommodate any top brass in the armed forces or the NCPO who might aspire for a taste of what it feels like to be a civilian head honcho.
Gen Prayut is not too keen on being confronted with the question of whether he plans to remove some of the military officers from the cabinet.
“Are the soldiers so ignorant that they can’t be trusted to run the country? They have slugged it out trying to solve the country’s problems this past year. They are not stupid,” he said.
With a sluggish economy that needs boosting, rumblings are being heard that a military leader supervising a vital economic ministry might have to vacate his seat. Everyone’s eyes have turned to Commerce Minister Gen Chatchai Sarikulya. That prompted Gen Prayut to leap to the defence of his friend from the armed forces cadet school.
Gen Prayut insists Gen Chatchai is devoted with a go-getter attitude to his work. The prime minister said Gen Chatchai is picking up the pieces of the economic mess left behind by the so-called “professionals” who previously oversaw the ministry. Some of the problems are dire and require an overhaul of certain administrative and policy making areas in the ministry.
The commerce minister also deserves appreciation for having flown 20 hours to engage in trade talks in South Africa, Gen Prayut added.
So it does appear Gen Chatchai’s post in the cabinet looks safe and secure.
Sue and counter-sue
The legal battle will be long and winding for former premier Yingluck Shinawatra who is pitted against the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) in a court case that could see her thrown into jail. She refuses to take it lying down.
Vicha: Target of Pheu Thai.
Since the country’s first female prime minister was ousted in the May 22 coup she has been the focal point of a high-profile investigation by the NACC over the controversial rice-pledging scheme, one of her government’s budget-intensive programmes meant to keep the price of paddy high.
She has now been indicted in the Supreme Court for allowing the programme, smeared by allegations of massive corruption, to be run at a hefty loss under her watch as prime minister. Ms Yingluck has also been impeached by the National Legislative Assembly on the same charge and is now banned from politics for five years.
Her supporters have accused one man for the legal plight she finds herself in. Vicha Mahakhun, an NACC member, is not making many friends in the Yingluck camp.
He is also in charge of several other cases related to alleged legal wrongdoing and malfeasance in office involving her former cabinet ministers. One of them has to do with Ms Yingluck and 33 former ministers making a joint decision to hand out financial compensation to victims of political unrest from 2005 to 2010 allegedly without a specific law or regulation to support it, according to the NACC.
Mr Vicha, also the NACC spokesman and a former judge, has been entrusted by the commission to lead the probes into graft and power abuse allegations targetting people in the Yingluck government. The investigations are being carried out by a sub-committee of which Mr Vicha is head.
On the compensation payout case, the NACC is acting on a complaint submitted by Sathit Pitutecha, the former Democrat Party MP for Rayong, who maintains the money given directly to the victims of the political violence, and funds approved to pay lawyers defending suspected perpetrators of the unrest, had been disbursed without any legal authority.
The compensation and the amount allocated for the defence amounted to well over a billion baht.
According to the complaint, the funds used by the Yingluck cabinet were budgetted for very specific purposes, such as mitigation of national disasters.
As the NACC edges closer to deciding whether to charge Ms Yingluck and the cabinet members, Pheu Thai Party politicians headed by Chalerm Yubamrung and Anudit Nakhonthap are fighting back against the commission and have locked their sights on Mr Vicha.
They have taken Mr Vicha to the Criminal Court in Nonthaburi, claiming the commissioner violated the criminal code by abusing his authority as an NACC member. The alleged abuse stems from Mr Vicha exhibiting an intention to want to press charges against Ms Yingluck and the former ministers to intimidate them.
Normally, however, NACC members are tried in the Supreme Court as holders of public office, if they are indicted on charges of violating their duties. The Pheu Thai politicians said they filed the case in the Criminal Court to show the graft busters that they too come under the laws of the land like ordinary citizens and they too can be brought to account for their actions.