Global Courant 2023-05-18 07:43:15
BANGKOK _ Pita Limjaroenrat deliberately enters a political minefield, littered with failed politicians and governments.
The resounding victory of the wealthy Pita in Sunday’s national elections to try to become Thailand’s youngest prime minister was a vehement rejection by much of Thai society against the military’s political domination and coups d’état.
Pita, 42, now struggles to get his Move Forward Party (MFP) to form a coalition government uniting smaller parties as the knife sharpens around him.
Pita radiated a strong defiance and said the day after his election victory that it would be “quite far-fetched” for anyone to oppose his victory.
“With the consensus that has emerged from the election, it will be quite a high price to pay for anyone considering abolishing the election results or forming a minority government,” Pita said at a celebratory reception.
Ballots from the May 14 elections to the 500-member House of Representatives gave him and his MFP the most votes of all candidates and parties.
Likely in July or August, the 250-seat Senate — appointed by a now-defunct junta that was in power after a 2014 coup — will join the newly elected House to confirm the next prime minister.
“The sentiment of the era has changed. And it was the right timing,” Pita said. “I would like to announce here that the Move Forward Party is ready to lead the formation of the future government.”
Previous opposition politicians tried to do as Pita intended, and eventually they were disbanded and exiled by the Constitutional Court for financial conflicts, or allowed to become Prime Minister, but were later overthrown in a military coup.
Trained at Harvard and MIT, Pita’s experience in the US could make it easier for Washington to get in touch with Bangkok, which has good relations with the Pentagon.
“Thais will prove that the vote is stronger than the bullets, as President Abraham Lincoln said 200 years ago, will happen in Thailand this year,” Pita said, according to the Australian Broadcasting Corp.
Pita’s political base of enthusiastic, energetic, imaginative young people expanded as they convinced older relatives to vote MFP.
Pita and thousands of his cheering supporters thronged the streets of Bangkok around the Democracy Monument, a site often used for pro-democracy and anti-coup protests, on May 15.
Pita presents himself as the polar opposite of the grim, demanding military leaders who seized power in coups d’état in 2006 and 2014, embroiling this Buddhist-majority nation in street clashes, uprisings and other disturbances.
Thai Prime Minister Prayut Chan-ocha staged a military coup in front of a civilian politician. Photo: Agencies
His father was an adviser to the Ministry of Agriculture and his uncle was an aide to former Prime Minister of Thailand Thaksin Shinawatra, who was deposed in the 2006 coup.
After spending part of his childhood in New Zealand, Pita graduated from Harvard University with a master’s degree in public policy and from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with an MBA.
He put those ideas into practice at his late father’s rice bran oil company and other businesses, before divorcing his actress-model wife and venturing into politics.
Among Thailand’s gossipy “hi-so” – high society – money-flagging elite, Pita got the spotlight as an “eligible bachelor” raising his pre-teen daughter.
Pita then joined the new, liberal, anti-military Future Forward Party (FFP), which was doomed to disband just months after winning 81 seats and coming third in the 2019 election.
In November 2019, its billionaire leader Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit was convicted by the Constitutional Court for a financial conflict of interest that banned him from politics.
The court disbanded the FFP outright in February 2020 and Move Forward became the party’s new incarnation soon after, with Pita replacing the revolutionary and often fiery Thanathorn as its less confrontational leader.
However, some suspected that Pita was deliberately cast as the frontman to give the MFP a more acceptable “centrist” image, with many more radical members lurking in the background.
If he becomes prime minister, Pita wants to redistribute political and financial power and aid to communities across the country, rather than prioritize and centralize power in the spoiled capital of Bangkok.
He also plans to challenge Thailand’s large monopolistic family businesses to allow more diversification for smaller businesses and entrepreneurs.
Tougher, he also wants to end the military’s coup-sponsored influence over the 250-seat Senate, which was created to “screen” and monitor politicians elected to the House of Representatives of the House. Pita wants the Senate elected.
He and his party also want to end military conscription and have courageously pushed for Thailand’s discreetly disguised, influential constitutional monarchy to be opened up to greater public scrutiny and “reform.”
One of the protest leaders addressed a crowd at a rally calling for reform in the monarchy outside the Siam Commercial Bank headquarters on November 25, 2020 in Bangkok, Thailand. Photo: AFP/Vachira Vachira/NurPhoto
Thousands of youths challenged the police on the streets of Bangkok in 2020 with marches, satirical agitprop street theater, brawls, arson and other acts in a sometimes raucous call for royal reform.
Pita knows that those demands from the street have led to arrests, prison sentences, assault and harassment, including sentences of up to 15 years in prison for anyone convicted under Section 112 Lèse Majesté Act, which protects the monarchy from criticism.
Some of Pita’s closest colleagues in the MFP were active in those protests. He now wants to upgrade the debate from the mean streets of Bangkok to the grandiose halls of parliament.
The subject of monarchy is something most parliamentarians probably don’t want to discuss in any way, either to avoid legal trouble or because they are content with the status quo.
“We will use parliament to make sure it becomes a inclusive discussion with maturity, with transparency, on how to move forward in the relationship between the monarchy and the masses,” Pita said on May 15, according to the BBC.
On election day, Pita told the Bangkok Post: “Whatever happens, we will push for lèse majesté law reform.”
Pita and his MFP are currently trying to take control of key ministries, reportedly including the Ministry of Defense. The challenge of military and royal authority has already sparked talks of coups d’état.
However, a coup to stop Pita is unlikely in the near future, as his conservative opponents have easier ways to try first.
Pita is already trying to shrug off allegations that he is involved in a financial conflict of interest because he allegedly owns shares in a media company, which is not allowed for politicians under Thai electoral law.
Pita Limjaroenrat, center, may or may not become prime minister. Image: Facebook
Pita says he is innocent, but faces a possible trial at the Constitutional Court. A political opponent has petitioned the Election Commission and the National Anti-Corruption Commission to investigate Pita’s finances and present his case in court.
An important question focuses on Pita’s father – who died while owning shares in a media company – and whether Pita inherited those shares.
“I’m not worried about the matter because the shares don’t belong to me,” Pita recently tweeted. “It’s a family heritage and I’m the manager of it. I informed the National Anti-Corruption Commission about this a long time ago.”
Richard S Ehrlich is a Bangkok-based American foreign correspondent who has been reporting from Asia since 1978. Excerpts from his two new non-fiction books, “Rituals. killers. Wars. & Sex. — Tibet, India, Nepal, Laos, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka & New York” and “Apocalyptic Tribes, Smugglers & Freaks” are available here.
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