The choice of 250 senators has been completed, but Deputy Prime Minister Prawit Wongsuwon is remaining tight-lipped over whether they include members of the incumbent cabinet and the National Legislative Assembly.
Gen Prawit, who headed up the Senate selection panel, would yesterday only tell reporters yesterday that the list was complete but "I don't remember who's who".
That was because "there are so many names I had to read through," Gen Prawit said.
By law, six of the 250-member Senate are reserved for the leaders of the armed forces, the supreme commander, the defence permanent secretary and national police chief.
The remaining seats have been picked by the selection panel, set up by the National Council for Peace and Order. Of them, 194 were to be directly appointed by the NCPO panel while the final 50 were arrived upon by a combination of intra-professional or social group voting and then NCPO panel selection.
According to the House of Representatives' secretariat, the list of senators will be officially finalised on May 11 and it, together with the list of MPs, will be forwarded for royal endorsement the following day.
Senators are allowed by Section 272 of the constitution to join MPs in voting to choose the prime minister.
Reportedly, there have been attempts to nominate privy councillor Amphon Kittiamphon as an "outsider prime minister" should the parliament fails to choose one from lists of candidates proposed by political parties.
"I don't know anything about this rumour," Gen Prawit said, warning people against believing politically motivated news spread online.
"Most [of the stories] are fake and unreliable," he said.
Meanwhile, a Government House source who asked not to be named said Natural Resources and Environment Minister Surasak Karnjanarat will become a senator.
The minister reportedly cancelled his work schedule yesterday, the source said. At the same time, Labour Minister Adul Sangsingkeo told the ministry that his last day in the role would be May 8 as he expects a new government will be formed in June. He declined to confirm rumours that he will be put forward for endorsement as a senator.
In another related development, politicians yesterday petitioned the Election Commission (EC) to look into complaints about ineligible election candidates.
Ruangkrai Leekitwattana, a former member of the now-dissolved Thai Raksa Chart Party, asked the EC to probe the Palang Pracharat Party's Bunying Nitikanchana, who ran in Constituency 2 in Ratchaburi, following an allegation that she holds shares in media businesses.
Kharom Phonphonklang, a prospective party-list MP for the Future Forward Party (FFP), has protested to the election watchdog against a complaint earlier lodged by political activist Srisuwan Janya over 11 FFP members and MPs-elect allegedly owning shares in media companies.
"It is a false complaint," he said, arguing that a company that he was accused of holding shares in had been shut down five years ago.
He also claimed his colleagues are similarly innocent of the allegations against them.
