ALMOST four years ago, the coup removed politicians from formal politics and banned them from any activism. But that does not mean all politicos have been taking a break in these past years.

Despite the very strict ban on political gatherings, some politicians have been keeping their nose to the grindstone. They may seem to be off the political grid, but actually, they still get out and about, and network with voters through different activities. So, although they have been away from the Parliament and the public stage for quite a while, they are all geared up and ready to get back into the political arena once the ban is lifted.

As the junta continues to run the country and hold a tight grip on political activism, a number of politicians have thrown themselves into the sports industry as it is a smart way to not only rake it in but also to build political currency.

MP-turned-football-club-president Warawut Silpa-archa is among those who have taken this path. Although his name has only come into prominence in the past few years as the president of Suphanburi Football Club (FC), Warawut told The Nation that he had been working with the club for almost seven years.

“My family, we have always been into sports. We have always seen value in them,” said the Chart Thai Pattana Party’s leading figure, whose wife and daughter are prominent in national professional ice-skating circles. “And similar to politics, I think that sports are also something that make people happy.”

Warawut explained that Suphanburi FC practised a form of corporate social responsibility.

“Through football, the club provides some social services to people. We bring happiness to the people in Suphanburi and give them a good time,” he said. “And by developing sport, we give some value to the people. This is nothing different from politics.”

Aside from that, Warawut said that he has been working at the charitable Banharn-Jamsai Foundation. So, in the past three years he has maintained close ties with people in his stronghold of Suphanburi. When the political ban is revoked, he is more than ready to jump back in politics, the ex-MP said.

Tankhun Jitissara is a former Democrat MP who, before the coup, managed to win in the Don Muang constituency – a onetime stronghold of the archrival Pheu Thai Party. He also said he was 100 per cent ready to get back to work as soon as the junta allows political gatherings.

In the past three years under the strict coup-backed regime, Tankhun said he had taken the opportunity to continue his studies.

“I’ve been doing a PhD on social leadership at the College of Social Innovation, Rangsit University since 2015. I’m trying to finish my thesis now and, hopefully, at the next election I will be running as a candidate who has a doctorate degree,” Tankhun said. Before embarking on the doctorate, soon after the coup in 2014, the former MP took some courses with King Prajadhipok Institute, an institution reputable for studies in political science.

“This is not to waste time, you know. I knew I would be free for quite some time so I would just go for it. I believe education can enhance my political work when civilian rule resumes,” he said.

Aside from this pursuit of knowledge, Tankhun said he had also tried to be as helpful as possible to the people in his former constituency. He said he has tried to be “the people’s man” and he listens to his former constituents about the problems they have. When party meetings are allowed once again, he will be ready to contribute and help people out at a higher level.

Many politicians from the former coalition-leading Pheu Thai Party have remained the focus of media and public attention regardless of the current regime.

Before she fled the country, former prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra made many Facebook posts indicating that she had been on a national tour, making merit and meeting supporters across the country.

She was always well received by her supporters during those tours and other activities. One time last year during the rice-price crisis, Yingluck bought tonnes of rice from farmers and managed to sell it all in just an hour.

If it had not been for the rice-pledging case, which led to her flight from Thailand, Yingluck would have been more than ready to get back to work after the junta steps down.

But there are some former politicians who seem to have turned their backs on the political life.

Suranand Vejjajiva, former secretary-general to ex-PM Yingluck, after the coup took on a business venture and started running his own restaurant, Brainwake Cafe, in Sukhumvit. After just a couple of years, Suranand has three other branches plus a food truck under the Brainwake banner.

He has only once posted a very political message on his Facebook page, when his close friend and former commerce minister Boonsong Teriyapirom was found guilty in the fake government-to-government rice deals case and handed a 42-year jail term.

Alongkorn Ponlaboot, former Democrat Party deputy leader, is another prominent politician who has said he would take a break from politics.

As he played a major role as vice-president of the now defunct National Reform Council and the National Reform Steering Assembly under the coup-installed regime, he pledged to put his political ambitions to one side in the national interest.

Alongkorn has said he would rather focus on realising reform than going back to politics.

Now that he is ineligible to run in an election – because he did not resign from the reform assembly within 90 days of promulgation of the new charter – the onetime commerce minister told The Nation that he still had a melon farm in his hometown of Petchaburi that he has to take care of.

Deputy premier Wissanu Krea-ngam will chair the meeting of DSI’s board of directors to consider these “special cases” next week. Three cases have been proposed to DSI by the Anti-Money Laundering Organisation (AMLO). In the fake government-to-government rice export case, AMLO is pursuing charges against Siam Indiga Co and its major shareholder, Apichart Chansakulporn, over the use of fraudulent government-to-government (G-to-G) contracts.

The defendants did not export the rice to China on a G-to-G basis as announced by the Thai Commerce Ministry, but instead repackaged the rice purchased from the previous government’s rice-pledging scheme for domestic sales. Previously, over Bt7 billion worth of assets owned by Siam Indiga and Apichart were confiscated by authorities pending further legal actions.

In addition, AMLO is pursuing a money-laundering charge against a former employee of the Mass Communication Organisation of Thailand (MCOT). The employee allegedly took a bribe of over Bt600,000 from Rai Som Co in return for allowing the firm to air TV commercials exceeding the limit set by MCOT, causing financial damage of over Bt130 million to the state agency.

Other cases include the embezzlement of more than Bt2.5 billion from a teachers’ welfare fund, and the sale of unreliable testing devices by a private firm to the armed forces.

The slowness of the approval process under the Labour Ministry disappointed Prayut and led to the demotion of Varanon Peetiwan, from Director-General of the Department of Employment to deputy permanent secretary of the Labour Ministry.

The ministry no longer has full authority to handle the migrant workers following the Prime Minister’s latest order.

The new committee is chaired by the Permanent Secretary of the Interior Ministry, Chatchai Promlert.

Its members include the Director-Generals of the Foreign Ministry’s Consular Affairs, Treaties and Legal Affairs departments, the Royal Thai Police’s Immigration Bureau, the Director of the Electronic Government Agency, the Interior Ministry’s Department of Provincial Administration, the Transportation Ministry’s Marine Department, the Agriculture Ministry’s Fishery Department and the Labour Ministry’s Department of Employment.

Prayut used his power on Wednesday to demote Varanon after it was claimed he had overseen slow progress on the migrant workers register.

Controversial scanner

The demotion caused repercussions as the Labour Minister, General Sirichai Distakul, and three others in his team made surprise resignations from their posts to show solidarity with Varanon. It was Sirichai who had promoted Varanon to the position of Director-General to handle the cases of millions of migrant workers.

More than two million undocumented migrants from neighbouring Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar currently work in Thailand but as of August the authority had only managed to register fewer then 700,000.

The government will introduce a new migrant worker management law in January which allows for tough punishment against those who hire illegal migrants.

The government wanted to give migrants a legal status to avoid chaos and panic among migrants and employers, but bureaucracy at the Labour Ministry has resulted in a painstakingly slow progress.

To Prayut’s disappointment, the Ministry – and Varanon in particular – dragged their feet over the collection of migrant workers’ bio-data, a source at the labour ministry said.

Collecting bio-data requires expensive retina scanners and huge servers, which will cost several million baht, perhaps even more than a billion, the source said.

Varanon was reportedly reluctant to comply with the idea since there was no formal written instruction to do so, meaning he would have been solely responsible if and when the project was launched.

Progress was also slow when the Fishery Department used such technology to collect workers’ bio-data in its own sector. However, its deadline is not until the end of March next year.

The Prime Minister’s latest order to establish the new committee, issued on Thursday, also requires the committee to use the same technology as the Fishery Department, even though the effectiveness of the new system has not yet been proved, the source said.

The upcoming reshuffle, the fourth under the Prayut administration, folฌlows the abrupt resignation of General Sirichai Distakul as Labour Minister on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, Deputy Prime Minister General Tanasak Patimapragorn yesterday shrugged off concerns that work at the Labour Ministry – including foreign labourฌer registration – would be disrupted.

His comments were in response to General Surasak Kanchanarat taking over the ministry following the resigฌnation of General Sirichai.

“There is nothing to worry about, everything will follow normal work procedure,” Tanasak said.

Tanasak said ministers have been working effectively and any reshuffle of the Cabinet would be up to the PM.

Tanasak said registration of foreign labourers would continue and are set to be completed by the end of the year.

Sirichai’s departure came amid longheld speculation that Prayut’s postcoup government needed to regฌister a strong economic performance ahead of the election set to be held next November.

On Wednesday, Sirichai and three other Labour Ministry staff members resigned shortly after Prayut employed his powers under Article 44 to shift Varanon Peetiwan from his post as directorgeneral of the Department of Employment to deputy permanent secretary of the ministry.

The resignation was confirmed on Thursday in an announcement by the PM’s Office, published in the Royal Gazette.

Sirichai was among Army generals who had gained prominent positions in the military government as a memฌber of the juntaappointed National Legislative Assembly and a permaฌnent secretary to the Defence Ministry before being appointed to the Labour Ministry in 2015.

He is the first minister in Prayut’s Cabinet to resign before a reshuffle.

In a post to Facebook, Somchai Srisuthiyakorn pointed to the 2014 case in which the Constitutional Court ruled that an election was unconstitutional due to the dysfunction at some application stations.

At the time, demonstrations by the People’s Democratic Reform Committee (PDRC) were taking place in Bangkok and several other provinces. The protesters besieged some application stations, making it impossible for candidates to apply to run in the election. As a result, the February 2 general election could not be held successfully in some areas and the Constitutional Court declared the election illegal.

Somchai said that failure had wasted some Bt3 billion of the state budget.

Learning from the mistake, the outgoing EC had developed a parallel online system through which candidates could apply to run in the poll, while also continuing the option for people to use the traditional brick-and-mortar stations, Somchai said.

However, the new organic law allows only the traditional approach, he said.

If the events of 2014 recur, the law states that authorities could designate new stations in place of the inaccessible ones, the EC member added.

“If that is the case, then maybe candidates from Nakhon Sri Thammarat [located in the south] may have to travel all the way to Udon Thani [in the northeast] just to apply to run in an election,” Somchai wrote, implying that the traditional means was rather inflexible.

However, Somchai said the EC was ready to cooperate with the law and would not petition its constitutionality.

The plane was scheduled to land at Nakhon Si Thammarat at 7am but it had to be diverted to land at the Surat Thani airport instead.

The prime minister had left on a military plane from Don Mueang Airport to visit flood victims in the Pak Phanang basin.

His plane landed at the Wing 7 military airport in Surat Thani’s Punpin district. He was received by Surat Thani Governor Wichuwit Jinto and Surat Thani police chief Pol Maj-General Apichart Boonsriroj.

The prime minister briefly talked to officials about the weather conditions before leaving for Nakhon Si Thammarat in a motorcade.

Attorney-General Khemchai Chutiwong late last month appointed prosecutors to work on the two matters and is considering whether to proceed with them in Thaksin’s absence, according to a source at the Office of the Attorney-General (OAG).

The two issues, which relate to the Krungthai Bank loan scandal and mobile phone concession fee changes, have been suspended since Thaksin fled the country in 2008.

They are among six outstanding cases against Thaksin, who has already been found guilty in the Ratchadaphisek land deal case, for which he was sentenced to two years in prison in 2008.

The OAG also agreed to a police request to charge Thaksin with lese majeste following an interview he gave in South Korea.

Khemchai vowed last month to reactivate the suspended cases as allowed by the new law on criminal procedures for political office holders.

While the previous process did not allow court trials in absentia, Article 69 of the new law stipulates that legal action can be taken, provided these cases had not been concluded before the new law took effect.

Article 28 also says that the Supreme Court can deliberate cases in absentia if defendants fail to appear before the court.

THE ABRUPT resignation of General Sirichai Distakul as labour minister could pave the way for the fourth shake-up of Prime Minister General Prayut Chan-o-cha’s Cabinet, as groups called yesterday for major changes due to poor economic performance.

“I’m thinking about the reshuffle but still sorting out what scale it should be,” Prayut said yesterday. “It might be this year. Don’t worry about it too much, it’s just administrative stuff.”

Prayut, who is also junta chief, said he was thinking of reducing the numbers of military officers and replacing them with civilians.

Sirichai’s departure came amid long-held speculation that Prayut’s post-coup government needed to register strong economic performance in light of the election set to be held next November.

On Wednesday, Sirichai and three other Labour Ministry staff members resigned shortly after Prayut employed his notorious Article 44 powers to shift Varanon Peetiwan from his post as director-general of the Department of Employment to deputy permanent secretary of the ministry.

The resignation was confirmed yesterday in an announcement by the PM’s Office published in the Royal Gazette.

Sirichai was among Army generals who gained prominent positions in the military government as a member of the junta-appointed National Legislative Assembly and a permanent secretary to the Defence Ministry before being appointed to the Labour Ministry in 2015.

He is the first minister in Prayut’s Cabinet to offer a resignation before a reshuffle.

Prayut, meanwhile, said there were “no hard feelings” in Sirichai’s departure, saying he had left merely to run his own business.

Deputy Prime Minister Wissanu Krea-ngam said the reshuffle had been made to accelerate solutions to “some problems” but he refused to specify what they were.

A ministry source said earlier that Varanon’s transfer was made because his department had failed to sufficiently register migrant workers ahead of the full enforcement of the new, controversial migrant labour law.

Adisorn Kerdmongkol, an expert on migrant workers, said he doubted if the delay in registrations was the real motive behind the demotion of Varanon on Wednesday.

Changing the head of the Employment Department would not speed up the registration process, since it also involved the cooperation of neighbouring countries, he said.

The ministry had completed 70 per cent of registrations for migrants from Myanmar, but only 20 per cent for Cambodians, he said.

The Labour Ministry had never worked quickly on migrant worker issues, Adisorn added. The government wanted to compile the biometric data of migrant workers by March 31, but the ministry had only completed records for half of the workers in the fisheries sector, while the process had not even begun for 2 million undocumented migrants, he said.

Instructions from the government were not systematic, as it had ordered the collection of biometric data after registrations, instead of carrying out the two processes at the same time, he said.

Adisorn, a long-time monitor of migrant issues, said he had never heard of a controversy or scandal regarding the now-demoted Varanon.

The resignation of Sirichai might have just showed solidarity within the team since it was Sirichai who promoted Varanon to his position, he added.

Meanwhile, Wissanu said Natural Resources and Environment Minister General Surasak Kanchanarat would fill the post in a caretaker capacity.

Deputy Defence Minister General Udomdej Sitabutr, who is the target of speculation in the possible reshuffle, brushed aside a suggestion that he might be the next labour minister.

Meanwhile, politicians called on Prayut to reconsider his Cabinet’s performance given the poor economic results of the past three years.

Former Democrat Party ex-MP Thaworn Senniam said prices of agricultural products, such as rice and para-rubber, had been held too low, affecting the livelihood of millions of farmers nationwide.

Postings in the Agricultural and Cooperatives and Commerce ministries should be “seriously reconsidered”, Thaworn said.

Anusorn Eiamsa-ard, Pheu Thai Party’s acting deputy spokesperson, blamed the new migrant law approved by the Cabinet for increasing costs and burdening employers of migrant workers.

Anusorn also criticised Prayut for using his sweeping Article 44 powers, which are not subject to checks and balances, in such a way that his own Cabinet member “could not tolerate and walked away”.

A committee will be set up to vet the bill within 58 days. Noted anti-corruption experts and former National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) members will sit on the committee, including Klanarong Chantik and Vicha Mahakun.

The NLA debated key controversial points of the bill before approving it. One of the points was the timeframe for the NACC to complete an investigation – within two years – to ensure its conclusion. According to the bill, if the NACC cannot finish its investigation within that time, it could seek an extension but it must also inform the public the reasons for the delay.

To ensure a system of checks and balances, NACC commissioners will be subject to examination by parliamentarians if malfeasance is suspected. Parliament could request the Supreme Court to make inquiries or launch a probe. NACC officials would also be subject to probes by the Office of the Auditor-General, which would then forward its findings to the NACC to consider and determine penalties.

Meechai Ruchupan, who drafted the NACC bill, said the newly introduced checks and balances mechanism would be further considered by the NLA. Meechai was also the chief drafter of Thailand’s new Constitution.

“I’m thinking about the reshuffle but still sorting out what scale it should be,” Prayut said yesterday. “It might be this year. Don’t worry about it too much, it’s just administrative stuff.”

Prayut, who is also junta chief, said he was thinking of reducing the numbers of military officers and replacing them with civilians.

Long-held speculation on the reshuffle was highlighted as Gen Sirichai Distakul left his position as labour minister on Wednesday.

Sirichai and three other Labour Ministry staff members resigned shortly after Prayut employed his notorious Article 44 powers to shift Varanon Peetiwan from his post as director-general of the Department of Employment to deputy permanent secretary of the ministry.

The resignation was confirmed today in an announcement by the PM’s Office published in the Royal Gazette.