The first meeting this year of the House of Representatives suffered a setback yesterday (Wednesday) when it was abruptly adjourned due to the lack of a quorum.
The meeting began in the morning and lasted until, in the early evening, a party-list MP of the Tairaktham party stood up and asked Deputy House Speaker Suchart Tancharoen, who was chairing the meeting, to conduct a head count of MPs present in the chamber before the deliberation of a government-sponsored loan bill for educational purposes and four related bills of the opposition parties, noting that the bills are important and that sufficient MPs were present to make a quorum.
Only 227 MPs were counted as being present in the chamber, which was ten short of half of the existing 473 House members required for a quorum. Suchart immediately adjourned the meeting.
Government chief whip and Palang Pracharat (PPRP) MP Nirote Sunthornlekha later admitted that the government now only enjoys a thin majority in the House and, because some of the MPs are in quarantine, they could not reach the required numbers for a quorum.
Commenting on the Thairaktham MP’s call for a head count, he said the MP appeared to be in a hurry, but he thanked opposition MPs for their cooperation in the passage of other several bills.
Nirote dismissed speculation that the lack of a quorum might be because former PPRP secretary-general Thammanat Prompao and his loyal MPs boycotted the meeting.
Source: Thai PBS World
