Thailand’s Supreme Court also banned several party members, including former leader Pita Limjaroenrat, from politics for 10 years.
Thailand’s Constitutional Court has ordered the dissolution of the Progressive Move Forward Party, saying it violated the constitution when it pledged to amend the country’s lese majeste law that bans criticism of the royal family.
In its unanimous decision on Wednesday, the Bangkok court also banned the party’s executive council, which includes its former leader Pita Limjaroenrat and current leader Chaithawatt Tulathon, for 10 years.
Pita, who led the Freedom Movement party to victory in the 2023 general election, was hugely 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 suppress pro-democracy groups.
But his attempts to become prime minister were blocked by conservative forces in the Senate, and his political career was thrown into further turmoil earlier this year when the election commission asked the country’s Supreme Court to dissolve the Movement for Freedom party.
The decision comes six months after the same court ordered the PJD to abandon its plan to reform the law on royal insults, ruling it was unconstitutional and threatened to undermine the country’s system of government where the king is head of state.
Although the ruling is likely to anger millions of young voters and urban residents who supported the party, its impact is expected to be limited, with only 11 current and former executives banned from political activity for a decade.
This means that 143 of the party’s MPs will retain their seats in parliament, and they are expected to reorganise themselves under a new party, as they did in 2020, when its predecessor, the Future Forward Party (FFP), was dissolved for violating election financing laws.
Legislative council members from a dissolved political party can retain their seats if they switch to a new party within 60 days.
Leaders of the Freedom Movement party said on Wednesday that members of parliament would form a new party this week. Chaithawatt also told a news conference that the court’s decision set a dangerous precedent in how the constitution should be interpreted.
The Somali Liberation Movement said the Constitutional Court had no authority to rule on the case, and that the petition filed by the Electoral Commission did not follow due process because the party was not given a chance to defend itself before it was brought to court.
What then?
The court ruling “was not a surprise, and is unlikely to spark widespread protests” as the party’s MPs will remain in parliament “albeit under a different banner,” said Matthew Wheeler, an analyst at the International Crisis Group.
“But the decision is yet another example of how the 2017 constitution, drafted at the behest of the coup plotters and approved in a flawed referendum, was designed to stifle the popular will rather than facilitate its expression,” Wheeler told The Associated Press.
Mark S. Cogan, an associate professor of peace and conflict studies at Japan’s Kansai Gadai University, whose research focuses on authoritarian regimes in Southeast Asia, told Al Jazeera ahead of the ruling that dissolving the MHP would lead to protests.
“Protests will be given ample space by [Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin]”Former Prime Minister Tony Blair, who failed to defend PETA, arguably discredited the Pheu Thai Party within Thailand’s democracy movement when he agreed to a majority government with the military and royalist-allied parties,” he said.
Patrick Phongsathorn, senior advocacy specialist at Thailand-based human rights NGO Fortify Rights, told Al Jazeera that the move against the Freedom Party is just the latest in a “wider pattern” in Thailand of “weaponising the judiciary against political opposition”, and the case is “all the more significant” given the party’s huge popularity.
“[The] “The progressive genie is now out of the bottle and it will be very difficult to put it back in,” he added.
He said that with the replacement of the Popular Francophonie Party with the Popular Francophonie Party, “another party will be created to represent the views of this evolving social movement.”