Sanan, for, PM!

Maj Gen Sanan Kachornprasart was previously Secretary-General of the Democrats and Minister of Interior, but is now a member of Chat Thai Pattana, a coalition partner of the current government.

The Bangkok Post reports:

Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said he is unaware of any plan by coalition partner Chartthai Pattana Party to join force with the opposition Puea Thai Party to form a new government with Maj Gen Sanan Kachornprasart as prime minister.

“I have no idea about this and do not think Mr Banharn (Silpa-archa, chief adviser of Chartthai Pattana) will try to change the  political core as is being speculated,” Mr Abhisit said on Tuesday afternoon.

He also denied he had discussed the proposed charter amendments with some key figures of the junior coalition partners while having lunch at the 55th birthday party of Suwat Liptapanlop, a key member of the Ruam Jai Thai Chart Pattana Party, this afternoon.

Mr Abhisit said the leader of Social Action leader and Natural Resources and Environment Minister Suwit Khunkitti would arrange a meeting of all key members of the six coalition partners soon to discuss the charter issue.

Today's  luncheon meeting was on the second floor of Mr Suwat’s Bangkok residence. It lasted about two hours but no key figures from the Chartthai Pattana or Bhumjaithai parties attended it.

BP: Per the Kao Kon Kon Kao TV news program on Channel 9 last night, there were places for 19 people at Suwat's birthday, but only 9 stayed for lunch. Now, there were members of Chat Thai Pattana (including Sanan) and Bhum Jai Thai who showed to give birthday greetings but they left before lunch started/when Abhisit arrived.

Am not so sure about the original source of this suggestion. According to Matichon, Snoh Thienthong, Pracharaj party leader (aligned with the pro-Thaksin Puea Thai party in opposition), greeted Sanan, when he met him at a wedding yesterday, "Hello Prime Minister" ["สวัสดี ท่านนายกฯ"] and then the two went to spoke to each for about 10 minutes on a variety of issues, including having two persons as PM. 

BP: In the upcoming no-confidence debate, the government can change if there is a vote of no-confidence in the PM. Puea Thai will lead it and are meant to provide the name of the new PM. Puea Thai have about 189 MPs, Chat Thai Pattana about 25, and Bhum Jai Thai about 33. Then you have Pracharaj and some other MPs part of other coalition parties, but more closely aligned with Puea Thai totalling about 15-20. This gets you around 260 MPs out of 480 MPs which is a majority, although they may want to pick up 10 MPs to give them a clearer majority. Now, one way to convince Chat Thai Pattana to leave the government would be for Puea Thai to choose of the Chat Thai Pattana MPs, namely Sanan, to be PM.* Then, if you get Bhum Jai Thai onboard Abhisit is gone. This still seems unlikely although certainly not impossible as both Chat Thai Pattana and Bhum Jai Thai are not happy with the Democrats. Whether they would leave the government is a different matter, but above is a path on how it might happen.

Why Sanan? He was Secretary-General of the Democrats and Interior Minister under Chuan. He can hardly be attacked as some Thaksin lackey then.

*did do a check on Election Commission report of the list of MPs from the 2007 general eelection and Sanan is an MP - Constituency 2 in Phichit Province - and cannot find any evidence that he has since lost his MP status.