May 5, 2023
BANGKOK – Palang Pracharath Party leader General Prawit Wongsuwan remains upbeat despite falling out of the top 10 as a preferred prime minister candidate, as revealed by the latest public survey.
Speaking to reporters at the party head office on Thursday, Prawit, who appeared to be in a good mood, said he would not mind if other parties shunned his party in forming the next coalition government.
“It’s fine. If they don’t want to form a coalition with me, I can work alone. If I win more than 300 MPs, why should I need other parties as partners?” Prawit said.
He was apparently referring to announcements by the Pheu Thai and Move Forward parties that they would not work in a coalition which included Palang Pracharath.
The latest survey by Nida Poll, whose results were announced on Wednesday, showed that Pheu Thai and Move Forward were the most popular parties in the party-list election with 37.92% and 35.36% support respectively.
Palang Pracharath was almost at the bottom with eighth rank and only 1.28% support.
Nida Poll also found that Prawit had slumped to 11th place in the choice of PM candidate, along with nine others under “no comment” reply.
Nida Poll said the nine names, including Prawit’s, with “no comment” option were cited by 2.12% of the respondents. In previous polls, Prawit used to receive a few percentage points but at least he had his own ranking – albeit very low.
Prawit told reporters that he has been trying to keep himself physically fit for the job of prime minister by swimming every day.