Opposition's censure plan lacks substance

Thiva Ngern-yuang, a Democrat MP, said if the Pheu Thai fails to submit a no-confidence censure motion to the House Speaker by March 11, it can delay doing so until May.

"They can delay their submission of a no-confidence motion until May because by law the motion must be submitted one to two weeks before Parliament adjourns. This would give enough time for ministers to prepare to defend themselves," he said.

If the Pheu Thai fails to launch a no-confidence debate in this session, it will not be able to do so in the next one, where the lawmakers will focus on debating and passing legislations.

There has been disunity within the Pheu Thai over how to handle the no-confidence debate. Thiva said the reason may stem from the lack of credible information for the censure.

"I don't think they have enough information. From their preview, the subjects range from "gigs" (secret girl friends) of ministers or car of the prime minister. In the past, they would normally reveal 10 per cent of the official document (about alleged corruption) as a preview to attract the interest of the public, who would then be tempted to follow the censure debate," he said. "But now there seems to be no information at all.'

Phaichit Srivorakhan, a Pheu Thai MP from Nakhon Phanom, said all information related to the no-confidence censure debate has been sent to Chalerm Yoobamrung, the chairman of the party's MPs. After that the information will be distributed to the MPs to prepare for the censure debate.

"We'll use fewer MPs so that we can spend more time on the debate," said Phaichit. "Some three to five MPs will be assigned to censure the prime minister, while we only need one or two MPs to censure the ministers."

He added that the thrust of the censure debate would be corruption, political ethics and misallocation of Cabinet jobs, which had damaged the economy.