By Zach Hope
Singapore: Only 15 months ago, Thai reformists, helmed by a Harvard-and New Zealand-educated 42-year-old, stunned the powerful army generals and royalists with an electoral victory heralding what seemed to be a historic shift in Thailand’s democracy.
Years of rule by 2014 coup leader Prayuth Chan-o-cha, a sputtering economy and political meddling from elites had fomented resentment among politically aware Thais, especially the young. They questioned the role of the monarchy and the elite power structures that had grown fat off its regal imprimatur. The Move Forward Party and its charismatic young leader, Pita Limjaroenrat, offered a new political vehicle for their grievances.
Pita Limjaroenrat: “Democracy in Thailand is on the defence.”Credit: Getty
Campaigning on a platform of change, Move Forward, whose short-lived predecessor Future Forward was forcibly dissolved in 2020, won the most votes in the nation’s lower-house elections in May last year and, supposedly, a popular mandate to build a pro-democracy coalition.
However, the party was thwarted by the unelected Senate and never governed. Pita never became prime minister. On Wednesday in Bangkok, Thailand’s Constitutional Court will decide whether the party is allowed to exist at all.
The combustible court case, one of several destabilising Thai politics, centres on Move Forward’s election commitment to loosen the strict lèse-majesté laws that punish perceived slights against the monarchy with jail terms of up to 15 years per offence.
No one has seriously dared soften the laws in more than a century of formal existence in the criminal code, a reflection of the monarchy’s exalted status in Thai culture.
Supporters of the Move Forward party raise three-finger salutes during a rally organised by activist groups.Credit: Getty
Critics, however, say lèse-majesté is a tool for locking up opponents and frightening others into silence. While the laws were deployed sparingly before the 2014 coup, human rights groups cite more than 250 prosecutions last year.
In an ominous signal to pro-democracy campaigners, the same Constitutional Court ruled separately in January that the promised reform was tantamount to insurrection and ordered it to cease. The current petition to the court asks it to go further: dissolve Move Forward and ban its leaders from politics for a decade.
But scholars of Thailand say the veneer of legal process around the lèse-majesté proposals serves to mask the powerful internal levers of an undemocratic deep state invariably geared towards military and royalist interests.
“Political scientists call it a ‘competitive authoritarian’ system,” says ANU senior lecturer Dr Greg Raymond. “That is, you do have elections. There is genuine competition going on. But there are other mechanisms and institutions which generally ensure that the conservative establishment has a government to its liking.”
Thailand’s Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin.Credit: AP
Move Forward and then-leader Pita never formed a coalition because they were blocked by the junta-appointed Senate on the weight of numbers during a bicameral sitting of parliament weeks after the election.
Move Forward’s coalition partner Pheu Thai, the party of former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, built a government instead under current prime minister Srettha Thavisin. Move Forward became the opposition.
“Thaksin is no longer regarded as the most serious adversary for the establishment,” Raymond says. “They’re now confronted by Move Forward, which promises a serious overhaul of all of Thailand’s fundamental institutions and to place them under a genuine rule of law.”
In a further blow for democracy campaigners, Pita was suspended from parliament in July last year while the Constitutional Court considered a charge brought by the electoral commission that he had broken Thailand’s electoral rules by inheriting shares in a long-defunct media company. The case was thrown out in January.
Pita no longer leads Move Forward but remains deeply involved, telling media this week “democracy in Thailand is on the defence”. Opinion polls show he remains the Thai people’s preferred prime minister.
The 2020 dissolution of Future Forward and 10-year bans handed out to 16 of its leaders were seen by democracy advocates as direct meddling to weaken the opponents of Prayuth.
It is among several Thai political parties, starting with those backed by Thaksin, banished in the past two decades.
Protesters took to the streets, and are expected to rally again if Move Forward is dissolved on Wednesday. The scale of the protest would depend on the message from the Move Forward leadership and how grassroots organisations responded, according to University of Sydney associate professor Aim Sinpeng.
Supporters of the Move Forward party at a rally in Bangkok.Credit: Getty
“But the real challenge for the anti-Move Forward forces would be what dissolution means for the next election,” she says.
“The Move Forward Party’s electoral victory benefited hugely from the Future Forward Party’s dissolution.
“As the MFP leaders like to say, Move Forward is an idea, an ideology, a struggle that cannot die even if the party dissolves.”
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