The party that won Thailand’s most recent election no longer exists. On August 7, 2024, the Constitutional Court in Bangkok voted unanimously to dissolve the Move Forward Party, ruling that the campaign pledge amounted to an attempt to overthrow the monarchy itself.
The statute in question, Article 112, protects the monarchy from criticism with jail terms of up to 15 years per offense. The same court had ordered the party in January 2024 to stop advocating changes to the law. The Election Commission pressed for dissolution regardless.
The penalty was personal as well as institutional. Everyone who held a party executive post while the amendment was campaign policy is banned from politics for a decade, among them Pita Limjaroenrat, the former frontman, and current chief Chaithawat Tulathon.
Move Forward finished first in the 2023 general election and never governed. A conservative, military-appointed Senate refused to endorse Pita for prime minister, citing his reform plan, and a rival coalition took power instead.
At a news conference that evening, Pita told supporters to grieve briefly and then fight on. “Let’s be sad today for one day but tomorrow we will move on and let’s release the frustration through the next ballot we will cast in the next election,” he said. He told the AP he was “absolutely proud” of what he achieved. “I have left my dent in the universe. And I’ll make sure that I pass the baton to the next-generation leaders,” he said.
What survives of the movement
The machinery survives, in part. Move Forward held 148 lawmakers in Parliament; the five seats belonging to banned executives are forfeit. The rest may keep their seats if they find a new party within 60 days, and Pita promised the movement would carry on in a “new vehicle” to be introduced that Friday, without him in it.
The geopolitics drew a blunt response from Washington. “The Constitutional Court’s decision also jeopardizes Thailand’s democratic progress and runs counter to the aspirations of the Thai people for a strong, democratic future,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said, calling the ruling a disenfranchisement of the more than 14 million Thais who voted for the party. The European Union’s line was shorter: “No democratic system can function without a plurality of parties and candidates.” Amnesty International called the decision untenable and said Thai law was being used to intimidate critics.
More turbulence was already queued. The same court was weighing the dismissal of Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin, a case brought by 40 military-appointed senators over his appointment of a cabinet minister once jailed on bribery charges. Chaithawat, the Move Forward leader, warned that the dissolution set a dangerous precedent in how the constitution is read.
Outside the party’s Bangkok headquarters, supporters in the movement’s orange gathered as the verdict landed. “To me, Pita is my PM,” Sakhorn Kamtalang, 60, told AFP. A 34-year-old activist, Attaphon Buaphat, put the strategic bet plainly. “You can get rid of the agents, the representatives for these people’s beliefs, but you are not going to be able to get rid of the beliefs,” he told The Reporters.
Sources
- Thailand: Court dissolves opposition Move Forward Party
- Thai court dissolves progressive Move Forward Party, which won election but was blocked from power – The Asahi Shimbun (AP)
