Thailand’s Move Forward has ‘momentum on our side’, Pita says as he seeks allies for PM bid

Party leader Pita Limjaroenrat is still 63 seats short of forming a majority of 376 across the Thai parliament’s two chambers

The party’s plan to remove the 112 royal defamation law is a red line to several large potential partners including Bhumjaithai, which finished third in the polls

Reading Time:3 minutes

Move Forward Party leader Pita Limjaroenrat says there is a “very clear road map” for his bid to become Thailand’s prime minister. Photo: AP

Published: 5:23pm, 18 May 2023

Pita Limjaroenrat, leader of Thailand’s poll-winning Move Forward Party, on Thursday sought to dynamise his bid for government by announcing two new coalition members, as his party’s stance on monarchy reform drew outcry from an establishment desperate to block his march to office.

The youth-focused Move Forward won a shock victory in Sunday’s polls, scooping up 152 seats which – if ratified in coming weeks – will make it the largest party in the elected House of Representatives.

The vote for a relatively new progressive party delivered a withering verdict on nine years of military-aligned rule by ex-army chief Prayuth Chan-ocha and a rebuke to old powers, from local patronage networks to the kingdom’s apex institution – the monarchy.

Move Forward has been joined by pre-poll favourite Pheu Thai and six other smaller pro-democracy parties to carry 313 seats of the 500 available in Sunday’s polls.

The 42-year-old Pita says he has the popular mandate and his party is determined to seize the moment to form a government before its bruised conservative rivals have time to regroup.