Winning the legislative elections will not have been enough. Reformist Pita Limjaroenrat lost the vote in parliament on Thursday to become prime minister. The senators remained loyal to the army having rejected its candidacy deemed too radical, despite the risk of new massive demonstrations in a fractured kingdom.
Southeast Asia’s second-largest economy, mired in a cycle of political crises, is going through a period of instability, two months after elections that dealt a crushing setback to the generals in power since the 2014 coup.
Winner of the legislative elections under the banner of Move Forward, Pita Limjaorenrat comes up against the system controlled by the conservative royalist elites, who blame him for his legal troubles and his project to revise the law on lèse-majesté.
The defeat of the forties, face of political renewal among the youngest, revives the scenario of major disputes. The Parliament was protected Thursday by an important security device.
Despite the support of a majority coalition in the Lower House, Pita did not obtain the 60 votes of senators in the Upper House that he needed to reach the necessary threshold.
The MP Move Forward, the only declared candidate for the post of Prime Minister, convinced only 13 of the 249 senators, all appointed by the army. In total, Lower and Upper Houses combined, he obtained 324 votes out of 705, still far from the threshold of 375 votes he had to cross.
“I’m not going to give up,” he reacted, promising a new strategy for the next vote, the date of which has not yet been confirmed.
The senators have therefore mostly remained loyal to the military, despite Move Forward’s calls to put Thailand back on the path to democracy. Deputies and senators will meet as many times as necessary, with the possibility that a candidate deemed more consensual, from another party, wins the post.
Telegenic, smiling, at ease in English, Pita personifies at 42 the break desired by young people, who took to the streets by the thousands in 2020 to demand a fundamental overhaul of the monarchy.
New Constitution, abolition of compulsory military service, legalization of marriage for all, opening of certain markets… His program aims to turn the page of almost a decade under the authority of the former putschist general Prayut Chan-O-Cha , which has seen fundamental freedoms shrink and the economy stagnate.
But his speech of rupture exposes him on the legal ground. Pita is charged in two separate cases, which pose the threat of disqualification like a sword of Damocles hanging over his head.
The president of the electoral commission recommended a suspension of his parliamentary functions, because of shares that he had in a television channel at the time of the campaign.
In another case, the Constitutional Court has declared admissible the complaint of a lawyer who accuses Mr. Pita and Move Forward of wanting to “overthrow” the monarchy.
The question of the king’s place in society occupied the discussions in the Hemicycle, around the controversial law repressing lèse-majesté, one of the most severe in the world of this type.
Move Forward defends, alone, a reform of the text, whose vague wording leaving room for interpretation has been diverted for political purposes to silence any challenge, according to rights groups.
The conservative camp refuses any modification of this symbol, in the name of the untouchable status of the king, considered as a quasi-divinity.
Thailand, which has experienced a dozen successful coups since the end of the absolute monarchy in 1932, is used to political crises, sometimes punctuated by violence.
Barbed wire, containers to block access… A large security system crisscrosses the surroundings of Parliament, surrounded by barricades.
“We Thais have the right to express our opinions since we are a democracy. We can come together to protest,” said Patchaya Saelim, 17, a Move Forward supporter who came to parliament.
Thailand is “going behind,” said political analyst Napisa Waitoolkiat. “There may be large demonstrations in major cities, as has happened in the past. Not just from young voters, but from progressives as well,” she continued.