Thailand’s Constitutional Court ordered the dissolution of the nation’s largest opposition party after finding it guilty of breaching election rules with its campaign to amend a stringent royal defamation law.
The nine-member court in a unanimous ruling held that Move Forward’s bid to amend the lese majeste law, also known as Article 112 of the Thai penal code, violated the poll rules. The court also banned its leaders, including its prime ministerial candidate Pita Limjaroenrat, from political activities or running for public office for ten years.
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Under Thai election rules, about 150 Move Forward lawmakers in the 500-member House of Representatives, must now move to a new party within 60 days.
The country’s Election Commission sought the progressive party’s dissolution after a ruling earlier this year that the group’s bid to amend the royal insult law amounted to an attempt to overthrow Thailand’s constitutional monarchy.
The dissolution risks pushing Thailand into a fresh spell of political unrest, with the same court also set to rule next week on a petition to oust Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin for an alleged ethical breach. The threat of fresh political upheaval comes amid an exodus by investors from the nation’s stocks, and can potentially derail Srettha’s attempts to reboot an economy that’s notched an average sub-2% growth rate in the past decade, well below its regional peers.
Move Forward disrupted Thai politics by winning the most parliamentary seats in last year’s election. Its supporters were largely young and urban voters who had grown frustrated with the nearly decade-long military-backed administrations.
The Harvard-educated Pita, whose bid to form a government was thwarted by conservative politicians and a military-appointed Senate, has denied the charges and accused the poll agency of not following proper procedures in the case.
The party was the most popular in the country, with Pita being the top choice as a prime ministerial candidate, according to a June survey by the National Institute of Development Administration.
The upstart party antagonized Thailand’s pro-royalist conservative establishment that’s held sway over national politics since the end of absolute monarchy in 1932 with its call for reforms. Wednesday’s ruling is in line with the charter court’s verdict in January, when judges ordered the party to cease all its activities to amend the royal insult law.
The dissolution is a full circle for Move Forward, which replaced its predecessor Future Forward when it was dissolved by the same court for breaching election rules for financing in 2020. Its key leaders were also barred from politics for a decade. The ruling then sparked an unprecedented youth-led protest movement that called for the resignation of the then military-backed prime minister and reforms of the monarchy.
Pita, who led the party in last year’s election, has said it has a new group in the wings to take over in the event of a dissolution, though he hasn’t officially divulged any details. The lawmakers are preparing to move to an existing vehicle called Thinkakhao Chaovilai Party, the Bangkok Post reported last week.
Thailand’s charter court has dissolved dozens of political parties and banned hundreds of politicians in the past two decades for minor and major breaches of electoral rules, according to local media.
