Thai lawmakers vote to void Pita’s nomination to be prime minister
- Pita Limjaroenrat’s hopes of becoming Thailand’s next prime minister were dashed on Wednesday after lawmakers votes to void his nomination
- The decision comes amid scrutiny over his shares in a media firm, as Thai lawmakers are forbidden from owning shares in media companies under the constitution
Pita was seeking to contest a second legislative vote on the premiership after failing to win the backing of the bicameral parliament last week.
Thailand’s constitutional court suspended reformist Pita Limjaroenrat earlier in the day, just as Pita was sitting in parliament for another day of deliberations on whether he could become prime minister, after his first attempt fell 51 votes short last week.
“It was commanded that the respondent must suspend his role … until the constitutional court has made its decision,” the court said in a statement.
Lawmakers are forbidden from owning shares in media companies under Thailand’s constitution, though the television station in question has not broadcast since 2007.
Pita, Harvard-educated and wealthy from a family-run agrifood business, has said the shares were inherited from his father.
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Under Thai law, Pita remains eligible to stand as a candidate for prime minister but must leave the lower house and will be unable to vote.
Dozens of his supporters, wearing the Move Forward Party’s tangerine colours, shouted angrily at a heavy police cordon outside parliament after news of the suspension broke.
Few expect his party to have made up last week’s shortfall, and lawmakers aligned with the military immediately forced a debate on whether the law allowed Pita to be considered a second time.
Thailand’s Senate is stacked with military appointees, with only 13 of 249 serving senators voting for Pita last week.
Those who did not support him last week were unlikely to be “brave and courageous enough” to change their minds on Wednesday, said Napisa Waitoolkiat, a political analyst at Thailand’s Naresuan University.
Other roadblocks have been thrown in front of Pita’s candidacy.
The court has also agreed to hear a case alleging that Move Forward Party’s campaign promise to amend Thailand’s royal defamation law is tantamount to a plan to “overthrow” the constitutional monarchy.
Pita’s party has ignored strident opposition to its pledge to revise the law, which can allow convicted critics of the monarchy to be jailed for up to 15 years.
The Move Forward Party’s reformist platform also poses a threat to family-owned business monopolies that play an outsize role in the kingdom’s economy.
Pita conceded on Wednesday that lawmakers who gained “personal benefits” from the present order, including those with stakes in powerful Thai enterprises, would refuse to vote for his party.
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Srettha’s Pheu Thai party is seen as a vehicle for the Shinawatra political clan, whose members include two former prime ministers ousted by military coups in 2006 and 2014.
But as a successful entrepreneur liked by business leaders among the Thai elite, the 60-year-old is seen as a potential compromise candidate acceptable to the Thai elite.
Prawit Wongsuwon, 77, a former Thai army chief who served as number two in the junta that took power in 2014, has also been floated as a candidate by parliament’s military bloc.
“If Move Forward is excluded, there will likely be protests … if protesters overreact, a Pheu Thai-led government would have some justification for a crackdown.”