Thailand Orders Dissolution of Anti-establishment Election Winner
Editor
7 August 2024 22:08 WIB
THREAT TO STATUS QUO
Move Forward's leaders said the ruling set a dangerous precedent for how the Constitution can be interpreted.
They said the party had not antagonized the constitutional monarchy nor did it have any intention of treason, insurrection, or separating the monarchy from the country.
Move Forward's influential rivals last year coalesced to block the party from forming a government, but the progressive movement remains a political force and a threat to the status quo, bent on pursuing a platform that includes military reform and dismantling big business monopolies.
Those policies have put it on a collision course with powerful groups at the heart of an intractable crisis that since 2006 has seen two coups, the removal of four prime ministers, dissolution of multiple parties, and crippling, at times violent street protests.
Move Forward is not yet out of the woods, however, with 44 of its current and former politicians, including 26 legislators, the subject of a complaint to an anti-graft body by conservative activists seeking lifetime political bans for seeking to change the royal insults law.
Some supporters called for protests against the court decision. At Move Forward's headquarters, its loyalists expressed both disappointment and disbelief at the ruling.
"It feels like we have hit rock bottom, truly hit rock bottom," said Sirinapa Veillet, 58. "It feels like we have no support left, none at all," she said of Thailand's democratic institutions.
Move Forward's disbandment comes at a critical juncture in Thai politics, with cracks appearing also in an uneasy truce between the military-backed establishment and another longtime rival, the populist ruling party, Pheu Thai.
Pheu Thai and its previous incarnations have suffered most from Thailand's coups and judicial interventions, with the Constitutional Court next week set to decide whether to dismiss Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin over his appointment to cabinet of a lawyer who served time in jail. Srettha denies wrongdoing.
Tycoon Srettha's case is among factors that have heightened political uncertainty and roiled financial markets at a time of weak economic growth, with the prospect of political upheaval ahead if he is removed.
A new premier would need to be voted on by parliament, potentially pitting Pheu Thai against coalition partners and leading to a shakeup of the governing alliance and realignment of cabinet and policies.
REUTERS
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