Veteran politician Kusumalwati Sirikomut has become the talk of the town after launching a direct attack on the Bhumjaithai Party for its alleged role in vote-rigging in last year's Senate election.
A native of Maha Sarakham, the 62-year-old is among the senatorial candidates who failed to make the final list of 200 senators in last year’s three-stage election process. However, she is on the list of reserve senators.
On Tuesday, the three-time former MP petitioned the Election Commission to ask the Constitutional Court to dissolve the Bhumjaithai Party for allegedly interfering in last year’s Senate election.
She implicated Bhumjaithai leader Anutin Charnvirakul and party secretary-general Chaichanok Chidchob in the allegations, claiming she had evidence proving Mr Anutin was the mastermind behind the poll’s vote-rigging, which would warrant the party’s disbandment.
Ms Kusumalwati, the daughter of former Maha Sarakham MP Sawat Sirikomut, previously served as a member of the Pheu Thai Party and later the United Nation Party (UTN). The UTN was formed to support former prime minister Prayut Chan-o-cha in his second bid for office.
Her last political role was as an adviser to Deputy Prime Minister Pirapan Salirathavibhaga during the Srettha Thavisin administration before she resigned from the UTN to contest the Senate election last year.
Ms Kusumalwati made her political debut in 1992 when she contested the general election under the banner of the now-defunct Samakkhitham Party but was unsuccessful. She switched to the New Aspiration Party and ran under its ticket in the 1996 polls, but again failed to win.
Her breakthrough came after she joined the Thai Rak Thai Party, the predecessor of the People’s Power Party and now Pheu Thai, and won the polls under the party’s banner in 2001.
With the Thai Rak Thai’s popularity skyrocketing at that time, she went on to secure victory in the 2005 general election, defeating Prayuth Siripanich, a candidate of the Chart Thai Party, now renamed Chartthaipattana Party.
However, in 2007 she defected to the Pheu Paendin Party and lost a subsequent election. She returned to Pheu Thai in 2011 and won her third election. In late 2018, she quit Pheu Thai after she was asked to contest in the party list system. She wanted to retain her constituency support base, so she moved to the Pheu Chart Party, an outfit affiliated with the red-shirt movement.
In the 2019 polls, she contested in Maha Sarakham’s Constituency 4 but captured only 9,744 votes, far behind Pheu Thai candidate Jirawat Siripanich, son of Mr Prayuth, who collected 43,367 votes. She decided to join the UTN in the last election in 2023 and contested in Maha Sarakham, where she again lost to Mr Jirawat.
Ms Kusumalwati’s campaign against Bhumjaithai drew harsh criticism and legal threats from the party, but she stood her ground and vowed to file a defamation lawsuit against Bhumjaithai. She said she feared for her safety after she directly confronted Bhumjaithai and said she might seek protection from the Department of Special Investigation.
“I had my lawyer draft the lawsuit. There will be no negotiation. It’s game on,” she said.
She also expressed concern about the use of black magic against her, saying it is not a myth and that she will find ways to ward off evil.