BANGKOK, Aug 5, (AP): The charismatic Thai politician who led his young, progressive party to a stunning general election victory a year ago is urging supporters not to lose hope, even if the party is disbanded by a legal order.
Thailand's Constitutional Court will rule Wednesday on whether the Move Forward Party violated the constitution by proposing to amend a law that forbids defaming the country’s royal family. A petition to the court requested the party’s dissolution and a 10-year ban on political activity by its executives, including former chief Pita Limjaroenrat.
Move Forward won the most seats in the 2023 election, but was blocked from taking power and now heads the opposition. Pita was denied the prime minister’s job by the military-installed Senate, a power it was given in the constitution adopted in 2017 under a military government.
The legal action has drawn widespread criticism as it’s seen as part of a yearslong attack against the country’s progressive movement by conservative forces trying to keep their grip on power. While Pita remains confident of the arguments that the party submitted to the court, he said in an interview with The Associated Press that he understands why people assume the party would be dissolved.
Pita, however, stands firm that Move Forward will continue to fight to prevent that phenomenon from being normalized in order to achieve a full democracy.
"We’re fighting this not just because of my personal future or my party’s future, but we want to make sure that, if it happens, that Pita becomes the last person. The Move Forward Party becomes the last party that joins the graveyard of political parties,” he said.
Move Forward’s predecessor, the Future Forward party, was dissolved by a Constitutional Court ruling in 2020 for allegedly violating election laws on donations to political parties.
Thailand’s courts, especially the Constitutional Court, are considered a bulwark of the royalist establishment, which has used them and nominally independent state agencies such as the Election Commission to issue rulings to cripple or sink political opponents.
The dissolution of Future Forward, whose promises of reforms were particularly attractive to the young generation disillusioned by yearslong military rule, further highlighted the struggle between the progressive movement and conservative forces in Thailand. It was one of the triggers for youth-led pro-democracy protests that sprung up across the country in 2020. They openly criticized the monarchy, an institution long considered a linchpin of Thai society and untouchable.
Insulting or defaming key royal family members is punishable by up to 15 years in prison under a law also known as lese majeste, and usually referred to as Article 112 of Thailand’s Criminal Code. Those protests led to vigorous prosecutions under the law, which had previously been relatively rarely employed. Critics say the law is often wielded as a tool to quash political dissent.
Move Forward, formed as a new home to lawmakers of the dissolved Future Forward, campaigned for an amendment to the law in the 2023 election. That and the introduction of other democratic reforms carried over from its predecessor landed it in first place in the election, a victory indicating that many Thai voters were ready for change.