subscribe Support our award-winning journalism. The Premium package (digital only) is R30 for the first month and thereafter you pay R129 p/m now ad-free for all subscribers.
Subscribe now
Move Forward Party leader Pita Limjaroenrat leaves after voting for house speaker, at the parliament in Bangkok, Thailand on July 4, 2023. File Picture: REUTERS/Athit Perawongmetha
Move Forward Party leader Pita Limjaroenrat leaves after voting for house speaker, at the parliament in Bangkok, Thailand on July 4, 2023. File Picture: REUTERS/Athit Perawongmetha

Bangkok — Thailand’s Constitutional Court rejected a request from the election winning Move Forward Party on Wednesday to review a parliamentary decision that blocked its prime ministerial candidate from being renominated.

The move all but kills off any hope of the progressive Move Forward leading the next government and paves the way for the legislature to hold another vote on a prime minister as soon as this week.

Thailand has been under a caretaker government for five months and its biggest parties in parliament have been unable to form a government after Pita Limjaroenrat, leader of the anti-establishment Move Forward party, was rejected as premier by legislators allied with the royalist military.

In its decision, the court said it declined to accept the case because it was lodged by a group of more than 20 individuals that did not include the prime ministerial candidate himself.

“Their rights were not violated and they did not have the rights to file the complaint,” it said of the petitioners, in what was a unanimous decision.

Allies of Move Forward had petitioned the court to decide on the legality of a July 19 decision by legislators to prevent Pita from being nominated for premier for a second time after his failure at the first attempt.

Parliament is expected to schedule a vote within days on the prime ministerial candidacy of businessman and political neophyte Srettha Thavisin, of the second-place Pheu Thai Party.

Move Forward won the May election with huge youth and urban support for its liberal policy platform, posing a threat to business monopolies and the military’s political power.

But its effort to form a government failed to win enough support, with broad opposition to its plan to amend a law designed to insulate the monarchy from criticism.

Reuters

subscribe Support our award-winning journalism. The Premium package (digital only) is R30 for the first month and thereafter you pay R129 p/m now ad-free for all subscribers.
Subscribe now

Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.

Speech Bubbles

Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.