Thai court dissolves election-winning Move Forward Party, bans its leaders from politics

The party was found guilty of attempting to overthrow the monarchy for its calls to reform the country’s royal defamation law

Reading Time:4 minutes

Pita Limjaroenrat, leader of the Move Forward Party, centre, outside the Constitutional Court in Bangkok, Thailand on August 7. Photo: Bloomberg

Published: 5:52pm, 7 Aug 2024Updated: 8:07pm, 7 Aug 2024

Thailand’s Constitutional Court dissolved the pro-democracy Move Forward Party (MFP) and slapped a 10-year political ban on its executives on Wednesday for attempting to reform the country’s royal defamation law during its winning campaign for last year’s general election.

The ruling effectively wipes out the votes of 14 million people who had hoped for sweeping changes to one of Asia’s least equal societies; stubs out the political career of party frontman Pita Limjaroenrat and nudges Thailand deeper into political and economic crisis.

For two decades, Thailand’s arch-royalist conservatives, backed by the army, have smothered nascent pro-democracy movements with coups and court rulings.

In that time the economy has wilted from the bright spark of Southeast Asia to the slowest growing among its peers, with growth dribbling along at 1.9 per cent last year.

MFP, which won the most seats in 2023 polls with a radical reform agenda but was blocked from forming the government, is the latest party to be taken out after rattling the establishment with its anti-monopoly antidote for the economy, vow to unplug the army from politics and, crucially, push to reform the so-called “112” royal defamation law.

Supporters gather at the Move Forward Party (MFP) headquarters in Bangkok on August 7. Photo: AFP

On Wednesday the nine-member bench ruled MFP was guilty of attempting to overthrow the monarchy with its campaign’s call to reform of the lèse-majesté law, which carries up to 15 years in jail per conviction of insulting the monarchy and effectively muzzles open debate on role of the kingdom’s apex institution in modern Thailand.