Another from Chang Noi:
From Westminster to Washington - April
25, 2005
...And in his recent Cabinet choice, 27 of the 35 ministers are outsiders.
This fact was rather disguised because many of them had been ministers
and MPs before. But others are people tied directly to Thaksin himself
including a long-standing banker, family doctor, and several political
aides. Ministers need have no political base or standing other than
their relationship with the prime minister.
...In Thailand’s old system, much of the power lay with locally
rooted MPs and with senior bureaucrats. The prime minister’s
influence depended on how he balanced these two poles. The new system
has a strong central phalanx made up of the quasi-directly elected
prime minister, his hand-picked Cabinet, and the new cadre of staffers.
The banging about inside the TRT party over recent weeks is a consequence
of these changes...
Thaksin’s Cabinet
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