Transcript of the above video: 

One thing I have kept a close eye on the past couple of months here in Thailand, there's a through line between these governments regarding the issue of the Interior Ministry and the staffing of the Interior Ministry. I've done some videos on this regarding the probable upcoming election, Anutin has, I should say Prime Minister Anutin has made statements that there will be a dissolution of the House; we will see an election looks like sometime in mid to late quarter one of 2026, and there's now some talk about a reshuffle in the Interior Ministry. I've discussed this at length. I recently read an article from The Phuket News, that's thephuketnews.com, that was discussing this under the title: Anutin cops flak for Interior reshuffle.

Quoting directly: "The controversial high level Interior Ministry shake up has sparked allegations of political retaliation by the ruling Bhumjaithai Party ahead of an expected general election." Well, I have talked about this myself. The former acting Prime Minister who was also the Interior Minister, Mr. Phumtham Wechayachai who we should remember was a Communist Party member of the Communist Party of Thailand. I have discussed that at length; I think France 24 brought that up. I cited that in prior videos. You can go back and check my record, on that, but he attempted to change all the Interior Ministry around going into October and then attempted to dissolve the House and hold an election, which that ultimately did not come to pass because as the Council of State noted, the Prime Minister, the acting Prime Minister does not have the legal authority to dissolve the House as the Council of State warned him on and he still attempted to do it. As I have discussed, look his attempt, one, setting aside the fact that he was a member of the Communist Party but the entire exercise if you will of him trying to replace a bunch of Interior Ministry personnel and then dissolve the House and then quickly hold an election was suspect in and of itself. I felt like, and I made the videos at the time, that was not the best “optics”, to use a diplomatic term. That said, quoting further: "The Interior Ministry's transfer of more than 45 senior officials, including several provincial governors, has sparked criticism over whether the reshuffle was based on merit or the BJT's (that is Bhumjaithai Party) attempt to consolidate political power ahead of next year's elections, reports the Bangkok Post." But what they are not saying here is that it was to replace people who had been replaced summarily, very, very quickly, all put in there in and then there was an attempt to have this - which the acting PM did not have the power to initiate - but there was this attempt to initiate a House dissolution, then call an election and presumably those people in the Interior Ministry would be overseeing said election. Quoting further: "Academics and opposition figures say the shake up approved by Prime Minister and Interior Minister Anutin Charnvirakul..." - and it's important to point out where they say opposition figures. Those figures were not in the opposition two months ago when they were trying to pull this stuff off, when they were trying to put these people in Interior Ministry, call a dissolution and then have this election. And it's worth pointing out, Stalin once said something, that just in the vein of this former acting PM having been in the Communist Party, Stalin once said, “I don't care what the vote numbers are”, and I'm paraphrasing here and it is translated from Russian but he said, "I don't care what the vote numbers are, I care who's counting the votes." And it's important to point that out because Mr. Phumtham has effectively shuffled in all these people who would have presumptively counted the vote under that dissolved House and under that election framework. So these people that have been put back into Interior Ministry have been put back after having been shuffled out once. It's important to have the context of all of this.

That said, quoting further: "Academics and opposition figures say the shake up approved by the Prime Minister and Interior Minister Anutin Charnvirakul reflects political patronage rather than administrative reform." Well I don't necessarily agree with that. They were already in there and what was the attempt by Mr. Phumtham to pack all those people in there? That wasn't patronage or something else especially in light of the fact he tried to inappropriately dissolve the House? Quoting further: "They warn it could disrupt local governance and deepen central control.” I don't know. Governance, central control, the attempt to move these people around and hold an election that the Council of State itself said, "hey, you can't dissolve and do that that way." Look, one, this term "governance" is something that I believe came from these World Economic Forum type circles. The word is "government."  At the end of the day, Anutin heads the Government. Whatever this attempt was by the former acting Prime Minister, who was Interior Minister, to put these people into the Interior Ministry and then hold an election, I don't know what you call that. That's governance; that's something where he was in an acting capacity but didn't really have the authority to do what he was trying to do. What is this word "governance"? It seems to be one of these squishy words that the again Davos crowd if you will, likes to throw around while they are trying to essentially trying to pull a fast one is what it looks like to me. 

So again, I have done videos on this already. I don't see where Mr. Anutin's conduct has been unbecoming in this regard. I think he was just rectifying something that everybody kind of had a consensus on up until about 4 months ago and then, what I called the Rump Coalition Party, namely Pheu Thai, got unfriendly with their Coalition partner Bhumjaithai, moved them out of the Interior Ministry and then tried to pack all these people into the Interior Ministry and quickly call an election and then, again citing Stalin, they are the ones counting the votes and then what? They were going to win that? How is that going to all work out? Then we have their "governance?" Personally, I'll go along with the 311 MPs that voted for this Government under Mr. Anutin and hopefully we will have a meritorious election that will be overseen by the people that were in the offices during the prior coalition iteration, that I think everybody kind of had a consensus on. It looks to me like People's Party who are backing Mr. Anutin through this Memorandum of Agreement don't seem to have a problem with this, so I don't see why this is being framed this way especially in light of the most recent facts. That being said, further facts could come to light so we will certainly be keeping you updated on this channel as the situation evolves.