Updated: Helping the gangsters

While there are current efforts to suggest the Line chat messages reported by The Bangkok Post are fake, the notion that the chief of the Department of Provincial Administration instructing a senior Phuket official to “help the blue party” during the 2026 election campaign does not seem to have surprised anyone.

Clipped from Khaosod

In fact, there seems resignation that this would have happened and that the messages merely confirm this.

Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul, whose Bhum Jai Thai Party – the leading blue party – would have been the beneficiary of state support in an election, has pledged to investigate leaked messages.

Before the election, the naive decision by the People’s Party to hand government to Anutin and his and Newin Chidchob’s gangster Party, saw the then blue government transfer dozens of officials so that Bhum Jai Thai controlled the Ministry of Interior, considered critical for elections.

The alleged exchanges were between Narucha Kosacivilize, director-general of the DoPA, and Roongruang Thimabut, deputy governor of Phuket, with the “leaked messages allegedly included instructions from a senior official telling subordinates to ‘help the blue part'” during the election period.”

Narucha has “denied sending the alleged messages or having any knowledge of them.” He also “denied claims that five local administrative officials had been transferred for refusing political instructions.”

When DoPA “reiterated that all officials had strictly adhered to political neutrality and election laws during the campaign period,” social media guffawed. And justifiably so given that Bhum Jai Thai successfully manipulated the senate selection process.

Update: It seems that the leak of these messages may well have been related to conflicts within the Ministry of Interior as a Bhum Jai Thai protege is being promoted to the top. Thai Newsroom has this:

Provincial Administration Department Director-General Narucha Kosacivilize is more or less anticipated to be promoted as undersecretary of the Ministry of Interior in the next four months, given his being viewed as a staunch protege of de facto Bhumjaithai boss Newin Chidchob, known behind the scenes as “manager of government” under elected premiership of Anutin who concurrently acts as the largest ruling party’s leader and interior minister, according to the partisan source….