Thailand’s Constitutional Court on Wednesday of the Move Forward Party over its proposal to weaken a lese-majeste law than bans any criticism of the royal family, who are still held in extremely high regard by many across .
The party’s leaders will also be banned from politics for ten years, including charismatic former frontman
Move Forward had won a majority in legislative elections in 2023, but the party’s anti-establishment message earned the ire of country’s powerful conservatives, military, and network of wealthy families.
Move Forward had also promoted a reform of the armed forces and pledged to break up powerful monopolies.
Some 140 former party members will be allowed to keep their seats in parliament and are expected to form a new party.
Judge Punya Udchachon said the nine-member panel had made the decision “unanimously.”
Shaky political landscape
Despite their election victory last year, the party’s powerful rivals were able to form a bloc that Move Forward from forming a government.
Move Forward had been accused of undermining Thailand’s system of governance with the king as head of state.
It had been ordered to drop the lese-majeste reform proposal in a separate ruling by the same court six months ago, and subsequently dropped the proposal from its platform.
However, the Election Commission still pressed for the party’s dissolution.
The verdict came amid other cracks in Thailand’s political landscape.
Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin, of the ruling populist Pheu Thai party, faces dismissal by the same court over appointing a cabinet minister who was once jailed over bribery charges.
Thavisin and the royalist establishment have been in an uneasy truce since he came to power last year.
The case against Thavisin was launched by 40 military-appointed senators. Thailand was ruled by a military junta from 2014 to 2019.
es/wmr (AP, Reuters, AFP)
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