Thailand opposition leader Pita warns of instability ahead of court rulings

BANGKOK – The figurehead of Thailand’s main opposition party has warned that court decisions in August may dissolve his party and potentially unseat the prime minister, risking fresh instability in South-east Asia’s second-largest economy.

Pita Limjaroenrat, who led the reformist Move Forward Party to an electoral victory in 2023

but was thwarted from forming government, said in an interview that the two court cases may bring about “quite a political inferno here in Thailand”. 

Top constitutional judges will rule next week on whether to disband Move Forward, which is accused of breaking election rules over a campaign to amend a stringent royal defamation law. The top court will then decide a week later if Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin should be removed from office for an alleged ethical violation.

Any move against either men could once again thrust the nation into political turmoil at a time when its government has been struggling to deliver results for its underperforming economy. 

“It’s safe to assume that democracy in Thailand is on the defence,” Pita, 43, said in the interview with Bloomberg News on Aug 1. 

The former prime minister hopeful was thwarted from forming a government by the country’s conservative elites following last summer’s vote. Move Forward has nevertheless retained its popularity and Pita remains the most popular choice for the prime minister’s post. 

Move Forward won the elections in 2023 in part due to a pledge to reform a royal insult law known as lese majeste, which can carry a jail sentence of 15 years. 

The Constitutional Court in January ruled that the party’s election campaign to loosen Article 112 amounted to overthrowing the monarchy and ordered it to cease all attempts to amend it.

Pita said the attempted amendment was not “an insurrection” and it was more to find a balance between protecting the head of state and freedom of speech. The court decision now gives him and the party direction and “we are not going to go out of bounds,” he said without giving details.

Should Thailand’s constitutional court ban the party and expel him from politics, he said the decision could lead to protests, though he doubts that these would be as big as the ones sparked by the 2020 dissolution of Future Forward, a predecessor of Move Forward.

Given that experience, Pita said setting up a new party would “go smoother” this time round. “If we do that, regardless of what the name would be, the ‘Leap Forward Party’ or whatever name, it doesn’t matter much,” he added.

Should he get banned, Pita said it would be up to the new party assembly to pick a leader, and Move Forward deputy Sirikanya Tansakun could be a candidate.

“(She is) quite an accomplished economist, graduating in France and working in the fiscal and macro policy space throughout her life,” he said. “She would be a great candidate, but not the only candidate.”

All lawmakers from Move Forward will move to the Thinkakhao Chaovilai Party if the Constitutional Court bans Pita’s party, the Bangkok Post reported, citing a person familiar with the matter. 

Market turmoil

A fresh spell of political upheaval, meanwhile, is likely to further weigh on the country’s economy after years of tepid growth. The Thai stock market is one of the world’s worst-performing in the past year and fresh turmoil could accelerate an exodus of foreign investors from the country’s financial markets.

Earlier on Aug 1, the government began signing up beneficiaries for a US$14 billion (S$18.7 billion) cash handout programme, which Mr Srettha is counting on to revitalise growth. But those plans could unravel should he be removed from office.

Pita is not the only one in the hot seat. In a separate case, Thaksin Shinawatra, a two-time former prime minister who is seen as the de facto leader of Mr Srettha’s ruling Pheu Thai Party, was in July indicted in a royal insult case that has its origins in an interview he gave back in 2015. The court seized Thaksin’s passport and ordered him to be present on Aug 19, when it will begin scrutinising the evidence in the case.

For now, Pita said he does not see an alliance with Thaksin’s party, which joined hands with the military-backed establishment to form a coalition government. Mr Srettha, he said, has “underperformed” as a leader thus far.

“It’s not a natural alliance,” Pita said. The current situation “shows the fragmentation or the fracture in the ruling government for sure”. Bloomberg