Deputy Prime Minister Prawit Wongsuwon has shrugged off former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra's prediction that the Pheu Thai Party will see a landslide victory in the next general election.
In response to reports that Thaksin told reporters in Japan he expected 220-230 MP seats of Pheu Thai in the next election, Gen Prawit said he did not believe so.
"Anyone can say anything," Gen Prawit said on Friday.
He reacted emotionally when a reporter told him that Thaksin based the prediction on an opinion survey. "If you want to believe him, you can do so. Why do you ask me? I don't believe it," Gen Prawit said.
Since Japanese media reported earlier Thaksin and his younger sister and former prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra were in Japan, reporters asked Gen Prawit if Thailand had an extradition treaty with Japan.
The deputy prime minister, who is also the defence minister, said Japan believed they were facing political prosecution and Thai officials would have to inform Japan that the prosecution had nothing to do with politics.
Gen Prawit also said that the National Council for Peace and Order was not shaken by the siblings' moves.
Asked if both appeared in public to show that the Thai government was unable to arrest them, Gen Prawit replied emotionally that officials were taking action on that.
Thaksin and Yingluck were in Tokyo on Thursday to celebrate the publication of a new book of a former Japanese politician. Reports said they would stay in Japan until Sunday before visiting China.
Thaksin fled Thailand in 2008 just before the Supreme Court sentenced him to two years in jail for conflict of interest in which his then wife won an auction to buy a state-owned land plot in inner Bangkok in 2003 during his tenure as the prime minister.
Yingluck also fled the country last August just before the Supreme Court gave her a five-year prison term for failing to tack action to stem huge damage from her rice-pledging scheme.
