The opposition's decision to drop Deputy Prime Minister Prawit Wongsuwon from its censure debate target list may have spelled out how politics will be played in the near future.
Also spared is Palang Pracharath Party (PPRP) secretary-general Thamanat Prompow who has taken a battering over his drug conviction in Australia.
The Constitutional Court in May ruled he was still qualified to hold political positions despite having served four years in an Australian prison in the 1990s.
Critics do not exactly exude confidence in his track record.
Gen Prawit, leader of the PPRP, has also been taken to task by some anti-government elements for managing the backstage power play that props up the administration and provides a solid anchor for Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha.
A political source said it would not be hard to find critics who refuse to believe that the opposition cannot find grounds or evidence to grill Gen Prawit in the upcoming no-confidence debate taking place in less than a month.
The opposition has reasoned that since it plans to zero in on what it alleges is the government's spectacular failure to tackle the Covid-19 crisis, it would make more sense to single out the ministers supposed to be taking care of it.
The source observed that while this explanation was debatably plausible, Gen Prawit got off easy in the previous censure debate in February when the main opposition party Pheu Thai stood accused of hogging the lion's share of the debating period leaving little time for the Move Forward Party (MFP) to go after the deputy prime minister.
Move Forward's displeasure was ignited again when Pheu Thai announced its intention not to target Gen Prawit in the upcoming no-confidence session in parliament.
To some critics, it has lent credence to the rumour that Pheu Thai was saving the political strongman from being dragged into the censure debate so that the main opposition party and the PPRP could be on "speaking terms" for the formation of a future government.
The source said it has been widely speculated that Covid-19 may shorten the government's lifespan. Even if it survives the censure debate, with the prime target being Gen Prayut, the source said the grilling would inflict wounds on the ministers slated for the no-confidence motion.
Jurin Laksanawisit, leader of the Democrat Party and commerce minister, has admitted it will be a tough task for the government to emerge from the censure debate almost unscathed as it did on previous occasions.
The source agreed the government may be able to explain away some pandemic responsibilities. However, it is the persisting debacle linked to vaccine procurement and allocation, as well as the economic woes compounded by the Covid-19 crisis that looks likely to be difficult for the government to wriggle its way out of.
Most probably at the centre of the censure assault will be Gen Prayut with whom the buck ultimately stops. The pandemic may be sending his popularity rating plummeting to a point where the PPRP finds itself at a crossroads. It might then have to ponder hard whether to call for a vote in parliament to bring in a new prime minister or reshuffle the deck altogether and convince Gen Prayut to dissolve the House for an early general election.
The source said a vote on a new prime minister could be a dangerous exercise on the PPRP's part. If the government emerges from the censure debate poorly, some parties might reconsider their position in the coalition and unity would suffer.
In such a case, going ahead with a ballot to choose a new premier could see MP support swing away from the PPRP-led coalition in favour of a prime ministerial candidate from the opposition.
The PPRP might opt for going to the polls. Assuming the new two-ballot election method was introduced in a successful charter amendment, political parties with strong roots in constituencies are expected to reap the rewards and the two top winners may well be the PPRP and Pheu Thai.
Other parties, including the MFP, would likely suffer with the much-touted two-ballot election system diminishing their chance of bagging list MPs.
Should the two titans be able to overlook their differences and frosty ties, an alliance between them could be forged leading to the formation of a two-party government. If that becomes a reality, Gen Prawit, who is widely respected even within several opposition ranks, would be needed to broker the political conjugation talks.
Rice saga rears ugly head
The rice-pledging scheme under the Yingluck Shinawatra administration grew into one of the country's biggest corruption scandals, reaching all the way up to several ministers in her cabinet.
In August 2017, the Supreme Court's Criminal Division for Holders of Political Positions found 15 defendants guilty of involvement in bogus government-to-government (G2G) rice deals.
Former commerce minister Boonsong Teriyapirom was sentenced to 42 years in prison while his deputy, Poom Sarapol, was handed a 36-year prison term.
Following their appeal, the Supreme Court in September 2019 issued a ruling to increase the prison sentence for Boonsong from 42 years to 48 while upholding the sentences for 14 others.
However, the probe into alleged irregularities in the rice-pledging scheme is not over yet.
The National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) has expanded its investigation into the bogus rice agreements following the 2017 ruling amid reports that 71 people are in the agency's second dragnet of false deals.
But public attention has waned over the past years as there is little information about progress in the case.
Supa: Gives probe update
After four years, the rice-pledging scheme, which cost the country over 536 billion baht in damages, is finally back in the spotlight starting with former commerce minister Kittiratt Na-Ranong being found in the wrong by the NACC for what is known as the Bulog rice deal.
Mr Kittiratt is accused of failing to act on alleged irregularities in the selection of a local supplier for rice exported to Indonesia in 2011. The case is now in the hands of the Office of the Attorney-General which will decide whether or not to indict him.
All eyes are on next month when the NACC is expected to wrap up its probe into the second batch of fake rice deals.
The NACC discussed the case's progress early this week at a media briefing to mark the third anniversary of the 2018 National Anti-Corruption Act.
According to NACC member, Supa Piyajitti, people under investigation for their roles in the so-called fake G2G rice scandal "Part 2" have been notified of the charges. Among them are senior state officials.
She said the inquiry has been extended to include "two to three more individuals, most of whom are former politicians living overseas".
"We will try to conclude the investigation into the G2G rice deals and pledged tapioca deals under the Yingluck administration next month," she was quoted as saying.
According to a highly placed source in the NACC, a total of 71 people are under investigation for their roles in the G2G rice scandal while three former politicians implicated in the scheme are said to be former prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra, former Pheu Thai Party MP Yaowapa Wongsawat, and ousted prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra. Ms Yaowapa is Yingluck's older sister.
Over the course of the investigation, NACC officials have interviewed Boonsong in prison for more information about the rice deals and the handling of stockpiles of pledged tapioca under the Yingluck administration, according to the source.
Thaksin, the self-exiled former premier who frequently appears on ClubHouse chats under the alias Tony Woodsome, became a potential suspect after being implicated by certain rice traders in the first case, according to the source.
Based on the traders' claims, they had travelled to Dubai for a meeting with an influential political figure who recommended that they directly purchase the rice through Apichart "Sia Piang" Chansakulporn.
Apichart, an executive of the rice exporter Siam Indica, was sentenced to 48 years in prison and ordered to pay 16.9 billion baht in damages to the Finance Ministry in the 2017 court ruling.
Ms Yaowapa, also Thaksin's sister and leader of Pheu Thai's powerful Wang Bua Ban faction, reportedly drew the anti-graft agency's attention due to her close association with Boonsong.
With the rice-pledging scheme being the brainchild policy of the Yingluck government, it would be nothing short of a surprise if the second batch of the G2G rice deal came back to haunt Yingluck, also a younger sister of Thaksin. She was found guilty of negligence for ignoring corruption in the first rice-pledging scheme. She fled shortly before the court sentenced her in absentia to five years in jail.