Thailand’s Deputy PM Prawit, Ready to Resign “If the People Don’t Want Me”

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BANGKOK – Thailand’s Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Prawit Wongsuwan told the media today (Wednesday) that he was ready to resign “if the people do not want me”.

In his meeting with reporters covering military affairs at the Defence Ministry today, General Prawit who is also the defence minister said there was no conflict between him and the reporters and, personally, he had never asked the reporters to write and report in his favour.

However, he said he would like the reporters to look at his performance for the past 50 years that he had served in the military and had been serving with the government for the past three and a half years whether he had done any damage to the country.

The deputy prime minister has been embroiled in a scandal for the past several weeks over the pricey wristwatches seen on his wrist which he claimed were borrowed from a friend who has already died.

While admitting the difficulty associated with his responsibility for security affairs because of some anti-government and anti-junta elements, General Prawit maintained that the government had succeeded in restoring peace and order in the country, with no political divide as witnessed in the previous administrations.

The deputy prime minister insisted that the government had done everything with the legal framework “because the primary objective of the government is to enable the country to move forward”.

He also defended the trips to the countryside by Prime Minister Prayut Chan-ocha, saying that they were not electioneering to woo people’s support for the next election, but to help the people, to narrow the poverty and disparity gap.

Source: Thai PBS