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Thailand
This Week in AsiaPolitics

Explainer | What’s next for Thailand after Move Forward Party’s shock election win?

  • The pro-reform party claimed more than 14 million votes in Sunday’s election and is now seeking to form a coalition with Pheu Thai and others
  • But a hostile military-backed royalist establishment won’t make it easy. Nor will the threat of legal woes, investor flight – or yet another coup

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Pita Limjaroenrat, the leader of Move Forward Party and its candidate for prime minister, waves to supporters near Bangkok’s Democracy Monument as they celebrate Sunday’s election result. Photo: SOPA Images via ZUMA Press Wire/dpa
Amy Sood
Thai voters delivered a withering verdict on nine years of Prayuth Chan-ocha and his military allies in Sunday’s election – handing a shock win to the pro-reform Move Forward Party, which claimed more than 14 million votes.
The party – led by 42-year-old Pita Limjaroenrat – is now seeking to form a coalition government with fellow pro-democrats Pheu Thai and five other small parties.
But winning an election does not automatically lead to running the government in Thailand’s straitjacketed democracy.
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Pita has seized the political momentum declaring himself to be “the next prime minister of Thailand” as he tries to drive his party to office. The senate, courts, military and a deeply conservative establishment stand in his way.

Prayuth Chan-ocha pictured in Bangkok on Monday. The junta chief-turned-prime minister could cling onto power yet with the help of his military-appointed allies in Thailand’s senate. Photo: EPA-EFE
Prayuth Chan-ocha pictured in Bangkok on Monday. The junta chief-turned-prime minister could cling onto power yet with the help of his military-appointed allies in Thailand’s senate. Photo: EPA-EFE

Here are some of the challenges that lie ahead, as well as some of the ramifications for Thailand – and its place in the world – if Move Forward is able to form a government:

Section 112, stubborn senators

Move Forward’s change narrative incorporates demilitarisation, protecting personal and political freedoms, hacking back monopoly businesses and – crucially – reforming Section 112 of the Thai Criminal Code: the royal defamation law that shields the ultra-rich monarchy.
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