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2020 - Move Forward Party (MFP)

Thailand’s Constitutional Court ruled on 08 August 2024 that the progressive Move Forward Party (MFP) violated the constitution when it pledged to amend the country’s lese-majeste law outlawing criticism of the royal family. Back then, millions of young Thais banded behind the MFP’s charismatic leader Pita Limjaroenrat, galvanised by the party’s promise of change. Its flagship policy was to reform Section 112 of Thailand’s Criminal Code, which restricts all criticism of the monarchy. The party’s victory and reform agenda placed it firmly in the sights of Thailand’s long-ruling conservative elite. Pita was blocked from becoming prime minister and forming a government.

MFP is the de facto successor to the Future Forward Party (FFP), which stormed to third in Thailand’s 2019 general election on an anti-junta platform, rocking the country’s ruling class. After initially surviving a Constitutional Court case accusing it of attempting to overthrow the monarchy, the FFP was disbanded in February 2020 after it was ruled to have violated election finance laws by accepting a loan from its leader Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit.

Following the ruling, 55 of the FFP’s 65 members of parliament joined the MFP, promising to continue their progressive agenda. One such policy ahead of last May’s election saw the MFP pledge to amend Section 112, reducing the maximum prison term for defaming the king from 15 years to one year and/or a fine of 300,000 Thai Baht (about $8,400). It was on this platform that the MFP secured a shock election victory in 2023, winning 151 seats in Thailand’s 500-seat House of Representatives, 10 more than Paetongtarn Shinawatra’s second-placed Pheu Thai party.

The MFP, however, fell short of the 251 seats required for an outright majority, with attempts to form a coalition with other pro-democracy parties, including Pheu Thai, blocked by Thailand’s military-installed Senate using power handed to it by a 2017 military-drafted constitution. In July 2023, the Constitutional Court suspended Pita as an MP over shares he allegedly held in a defunct broadcaster – charges he was later acquitted of. Pheu Thai successfully formed its own coalition, incorporating military-aligned parties and excluding the MFP.

In January 2024, the Constitutional Court ruled that the MFP’s proposed lese-majeste amendments amounted to a violation of Section 49 of the constitution, which prohibits attempts to “overthrow the democratic regime of government with the King as Head of State”. It ordered the party to “stop any act, opinion expression via speech, writing, publishing or advertisement or conveying any message in other forms” that sought to amend Section 112.

In March 2024, the Constitutional Court agreed to review an Election Commission submission requesting that the MFP be dissolved and its leaders be banned from participating in politics for 10 years over Section 112. The commission justified its request by pointing to the court’s January ruling, saying there was “evidence that Move Forward undermines the democratic system with the king as the head of state”. MFP argued in a written defence submitted on June 4 that the court lacked jurisdiction and the commission’s petition process was unlawful. It argued, among other things, that the MFP had no intention to overthrow the system, dissolution should be a last resort, and any political ban should be proportionate and targeted to specific MFP members.

Patrick Phongsathorn, a senior advocacy specialist at Thailand-based human rights NGO Fortify Rights, said the commission was “compromising its own political neutrality and independence” by bringing this case against the MFP. “This case seems to be politically motivated and follows a general pattern where the Thai establishment seeks to silence increasingly popular opposition parties”.

Experts held little hope that the MFP will win a reprieve. With a precedent set by the FFP’s dissolution in 2020, and the court’s January ruling against the MFP, Mark S Cogan, an associate professor of peace and conflict studies at Japan’s Kansai Gaidai University, whose research focuses on authoritarian regimes in Southeast Asia, said the “writing is on the wall”. “The Constitutional Court has already signalled earlier this year where it is going,” he told Al Jazeera. “The Constitutional Court, an institution with a history of political party dissolution, declared in January that Article 112 reform was treasonous, so what other message could it now send?”

Like 2020’s youth-led demonstrations following the FFP’s dissolution, Cogan predicts there will be protests should the MFP be dissolved, although the scale may be hard to predict. “The protests will be given plenty of space by [Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin], who failed to come to Pita’s defence and who arguably dissolved Pheu Thai’s credibility within Thailand’s democratic movement when it agreed to a majority government with military and monarchy-aligned parties,” he said.

Thailand’s Constitutional Court ordered the progressive Move Forward Party disbanded and banned its top leaders from politics for 10 years over promises it made during the 2023 electoral campaign to abolish the country’s strict royal defamation law. The court’s unanimous verdict dealt another blow to supporters of Thailand’s pro-democracy movement by breaking up the party that controlled 147 parliamentary seats – the biggest bloc in the legislature.

In its verdict, the court said it was dissolving the party on the grounds that Move Forward had committed treason by campaigning to scrap the royal defamation law. “The respondent’s actions in proposing amendments to Article 112 of the Criminal Code and using it as a party policy in the election campaign, by exploiting the monarchy to gain votes and win the election, aim to place the monarchy in a position of conflict with the people,” according to the verdict. The party intended to “erode and undermine the monarchy or weaken it, leading to the overthrow of the democratic regime under monarchy,” it went on to say. “The Constitutional Court must therefore order the dissolution of the respondent party as prescribed by law,” the court ruled.

Move Forward had won the biggest share of seats in last year’s general election, but its then-leader, Pita Limjaroenrat, was blocked by military-aligned lawmakers from becoming prime minister. Pita and current party leader Chaithawat Tulathon were among the 11 members of Move Forward’s executive committee who were banned from politics for 10 years via the court ruling. In September 2023, a civilian-led coalition with ties to the military came to power in Move Forward’s place.

The party had campaigned with a pledge to jettison the so-called lèse-majesté law, Article 112 of Thailand’s criminal code that shields the monarchy from criticism and defamation. The law has been widely used to crack down on and arrest young activists and leaders of a pro-democracy movement who spearheaded massive anti-junta street protests in 2020, when a government with deep military ties was in power at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Four years earlier, the Constitutional Court also disbanded Move Forward’s predecessor, Future Forward, and banned the leader of that other progressive party from politics for a decade over a campaign loan issue. The 2020 ruling ignited the youth-led protests that called for sweeping democratic reforms, including changes to the lèse-majesté law.

Pita, Move Forward’s former leader, addressed the party’s supporters in the early evening after the verdict was handed down. “Although I must bid farewell as a politician and a member of parliament, and that chapter of my journey has ended, I will begin engaging in politics as a citizen,” he said. “We will move past this. We will not let the frustration, anger, and energy we have now consume us. Instead, we will channel it and explode it in every voting booth in all future elections,” Pita said.

Chaithawat, the party’s current leader, also spoke out. “Today’s ruling sets a dangerous precedent in interpreting the constitution and laws. It risks affecting the fundamental principles and basic values that should exist in our democratic regime with monarchy in the future,” he said.

The court’s verdict drew criticism from abroad. The United Nations criticized the ruling as a “setback” for Thai democracy. The Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights expressed “deep regret regarding the decision,” Farhan Haq, deputy spokesman for the U.N. Secretary-General. “It's a setback to pluralism and democracy in Thailand and fundamental freedoms of association and expression,” Haq added.

The United States said it was deeply concerned by the court ruling. “This decision disenfranchises the more than 14 million Thais who voted for the Move Forward Party in the May 2023 election and raises questions about their representation within Thailand’s electoral system,” said Matthew Miller, the U.S. State Department spokesman, in a statement. “The United States does not take a position in support of any political party, but as a close ally and friend with deep and enduring ties, we urge Thailand to take actions to ensure fully inclusive political participation, and to protect democracy and the freedoms of association and expression,” he added.

While Phongsathorn said any move to dissolve the MFP would be just the latest in a “broader pattern” in Thailand of “weaponising the judiciary against political opposition”, the case is “more significant” given the party’s huge popularity. But even if the MFP were to be dissolved, Phongsathorn says, the “progressive genie is now out of the bottle and will be very hard to put back in”. As the FFP was replaced with the MFP, so “some other party will be established to represent the views of this evolving social movement”, he said.

Thailand’s main opposition Move Forward Party (MFP) soon relaunched with a new name and leader after being forced to disband. The new party will be led by tech entrepreneur Natthaphong Ruengpanyawut and known as Prachachon, party representative Parit Wacharasindhu told journalists in the capital, Bangkok, on 09 August 2024. It would be referred to as the People’s Party in English.