Parit Wattharasinthu closely monitors the Speaker of the Parliament, who has yet to forward the petition regarding Sak Siam's stock concealment case to the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC). A new committee has just been established to scrutinize the matter, raising concerns whether this is an attempt to buy time or to whitewash. He mocks that some declared achievements might be mere statistical illusions.
On 16 July 2026 at 16:34 GMT+7. Mr. Parit Wattharasinthu. Member of the House of Representatives (party-list) from the People's Party and Chairman of the Coordination Committee of Opposition Political Parties posted a statement via.Facebook.He stated that in today's performance briefing by. Mr. Sopon Sarum, Speaker of the Parliament, we gained clarity that after 41 days since the opposition party and some Senators filed a petition to the Speaker accusing the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) of misconduct for dismissing the stock concealment case of Mr. Sak Siam Chidchob, former Minister of Transport, the Speaker has yet to forward the petition to the Supreme Court to establish an independent inquiry committee and seems inclined to delay further.
When questioned by the media, Speaker Sopon said that just yesterday (15 July) he signed to appoint a committee to screen and advise whether the Speaker should forward the petition to the court or dismiss it to prevent it from reaching the court. Mr. Parit made the following observations.
1. Is the formation of this screening committee an attempt to "buy time" to delay the case reaching the court as long as possible, given that.
2. Is the establishment of this screening committee an effort to "whitewash" and cut off the investigation to prevent the matter from reaching the court?
Meanwhile, Mr. Parit proposed that if the committee's formation is not an attempt to buy time or whitewash the investigation, at minimum, the Speaker should take the following steps to start proving this to society:
1. Disclose the committee members' names to the public for joint scrutiny.
2. Set a clear deadline from today for the committee to complete its review.
3. Invite the petitioners to provide clarifications to assist the committee's consideration.
4. Publish all meeting minutes and detailed investigation results after the committee's work concludes.
Additionally, the opposition whip revealed. that some achievements Speaker Sopon mentioned on stage should be cautiously interpreted as they might be "statistical illusions." Example 1: Legislative promotion. The Speaker claimed that the first session under his leadership passed the most laws in 10 years. Statistically true, but the main reason is unrelated to policies or parliamentary management during the last three months (the 27th Parliament session). It is because many pending bills from the previous (26th) Parliament had already passed several readings and were near completion before the parliament was dissolved.
Therefore, confirming those pending bills from the previous parliament naturally increased the number of passed laws. The higher count compared to the last 10 years is because it compares three parliaments (25th, 26th, 27th), with the 25th being the first post-coup elected parliament and the 26th lacking pending bills due to government formation delays preventing timely confirmation of such bills by the cabinet.
Conversely, what Speaker Sopon stated but has yet to do is to increase parliamentary sitting days specifically for considering MPs' or public-submitted bills (not cabinet bills). Only by doing so can it be genuinely claimed that this parliament has enhanced legislative efficiency, which he hopes to see in the next session.
Example 2: Ministers' live responses to urgent questions. The Speaker said that during his first session, ministers responded to most urgent questions (33 out of 36). Mr. Parit noted that while system statistics show this, the figures are "illusory" because although rules require the opposition to submit urgent questions Thursday mornings indicating which minister and topic, the government whip asks the opposition whip for cooperation by notifying ministers in advance (Monday-Tuesday) who will be questioned.
Thus, if the government informs the opposition that a minister is unavailable or inconvenient to respond (which ideally should not happen as ministers should plan ahead unless unforeseen circumstances arise), the opposition may have to switch to question another minister to avoid losing their quota. This practice inflates the appearance of ministerial responsiveness in the system but does not reflect the ministers' true accountability in allocating time to answer opposition questions on desired topics.
Read related news.