Two and a half months after the parliamentary elections in Thailand, the vote planned for Friday on the future head of government has been postponed again. Reason: The constitutional court wants to examine whether election winner Pita Limjaroenrat from the progressive Move Forward Party (MFP) should theoretically stand for a second time.
In a first vote in mid-July, the 42-year-old hopeful of the democracy movement failed. A majority of parliamentarians prevented him from running again for the prime minister’s election a week later.
The court wants to decide by August 16 whether this was legal, as emerged from a statement on Thursday. Only then should there be a new vote, announced Parliament Speaker Wan Muhamad Noor Matha.
Favorite Pita booted out
However, Pita should no longer have a chance of taking office after his most important ally, the Pheu Thai party, renounced him on Wednesday. The party wants to form a new alliance with the help of established parties. This includes the Phalang Pracharat party, which supports outgoing Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha and his military junta. Prayut came to power in a 2014 coup. Pheu Thai’s decision sparked angry protests from pita supporters in Bangkok.
The main reason for the failure of Pita and his party is their plan to change the extremely strict lèse-majesté law. So far, the controversial Article 112 has been considered untouchable. Many Conservative MPs strongly opposed a government in which the MFP is involved because of the reform plans. Pheu Thai wants to leave the article unchanged if it comes to power.
Real estate millionaire Thavisin as top candidate
The party wants to nominate real estate millionaire Srettha Thavisin (60) as the top candidate for the post of prime minister. The party is considered pro-democracy and came second in the May 14 general election. It has 141 seats in the 500-seat parliament, Move Forward has 151.
After the election, Pita formed an alliance of eight parties. Although he thus has a stable majority in the House of Representatives, he was not elected head of government – because in the kingdom, in addition to 500 elected MPs, 250 conservative senators appointed by the military also vote on the prime minister. The army had decreed that after their putsch.
