BANGKOK — Ruling Phalang Pracharath Party leader Gen. Prawit Wongsuwan said Wednesday the party will not field a candidate for Bangkok gubernatorial race expected in the middle of next year.
Prawit did not rule out Phalang Pracharath endorsing a particular candidate though; the Deputy PM said the party will “support anyone who is a good person and can work with the government”.
The move leaves coalition-partner Democrat Party’s candidate Suchatchavee Suwansawat to compete with two major candidates from the opposition camp. While the opposition Move Forward Party has yet to announce the name of its candidate, it has indicated earlier this week that it will definitely field in a candidate by January.
The main opposition Pheu Thai Party on Tuesday also announced that with will not field in any candidate, leaving the race to Chadchart Sittipunt, former Transport Minister under Pheu Thai government of Yingluck Shinwatra and one-time Pheu Thai PM candidate, to compete with Suchatchavee and Move Forward’s candidate.
In a related development, Suchatchavee acknowledged on Wednesday that his MIT professor Herbert H Einstein was not related to Albert Einstein after he falsely claimed during his debut campaign speech on Monday that his professor was a grandson of Albert Einstein and that makes him “a sole true heir” of Albert Einstein in Thailand.
Suchatchavee said he sincerely believed in what his seniors at the MIT told him and was mistaken. The expose was revealed late Tuesday night after a reporter from Matichon news agency wrote to the MIT professor of engineering to enquire and received a reply from the professor that the two Einsteins were not related by blood as stated by Suchatchavee.
