Thai Constitutional Court dissolves progressive Move Forward Party | Politics News

Thailand’s top court has also banned several party members, including ex-leader Pita Limjaroenrat, from politics for 10 years.

Thailand’s Constitutional Court has ordered the dissolution of the progressive Move Forward Party (MFP), saying it violated the constitution when it pledged to amend the country’s lese-majeste law outlawing criticism of the royal family.

In its unanimous decision on Wednesday, the court in Bangkok also banned the party’s executive board, which includes its former leader Pita Limjaroenrat and current chief Chaithawat Tulathon for 10 years.

Pita, who led MFP to victory in the 2023 general election, was popular, especially among young and urban voters, for his pledge to reform the strict royal defamation law, which rights groups say has been misused to stifle pro-democracy groups.

But his bid to become prime minister was blocked by conservative forces in the Senate. His political career was further shaken earlier this year when the Election Commission asked the country’s top court to dissolve the MFP.

The decision comes six months after the same court ordered MFP to drop its plan to reform the law on royal insults, ruling it was unconstitutional and risked undermining the country’s system of governance with the king as head of state.

While the ruling is likely to anger millions of young and urban voters who backed the party, its impact is expected to be limited, with only 11 current and former executives banned from political activity for a decade.

That means 143 of its lawmakers will keep their seats in parliament and are expected to reorganise under a new party, as they did in 2020, when its predecessor, the Future Forward Party (FFP), was disbanded for violating election finance laws.

Lawmakers of a dissolved political party can retain their seats if they move to a new party within 60 days.

MFP’s leaders said on Wednesday that its lawmakers would form a new party this week. Chaithawat also told a press conference that the court’s decision had set a dangerous precedent for the way the constitution is interpreted.

MFP said the Constitutional Court does not have jurisdiction to rule on the case and the petition filed by the Election Commission did not follow due process because the party was not given an opportunity to defend itself before it was submitted to the court.

What next?

The court’s ruling was “not a surprise, and is unlikely to spur large-scale protests” as the party’s MPs will remain in parliament “albeit under a different banner”, said Matthew Wheeler, an analyst for the Crisis Group.

“But the decision is a further illustration that the 2017 constitution, drafted at the behest of coupmakers and approved in a flawed referendum, was designed to curb the popular will rather than facilitate its expression,” Wheeler said to The Associated Press news agency.

Mark S Cogan, an associate professor of peace and conflict studies at Japan’s Kansai Gaidai University, whose research focuses on authoritarian regimes in Southeast Asia, told Al Jazeera before the ruling that the dissolution of MFP would prompt protests.

“The protests will be given plenty of space by [Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin], who failed to come to Pita’s defence and who arguably dissolved Pheu Thai’s credibility within Thailand’s democratic movement when it agreed to a majority government with military and monarchy-aligned parties,” he said.

Patrick Phongsathorn, a senior advocacy specialist at Thailand-based human rights NGO Fortify Rights, told Al Jazeera that the move against the MFP is just the latest in a “broader pattern” in Thailand of “weaponising the judiciary against political opposition”, the case is “more significant” given the party’s huge popularity.

“[The] progressive genie is now out of the bottle and will be very hard to put back in,” he said.

As the FFP was replaced with the MFP, “some other party will be established to represent the views of this evolving social movement”, he said.