Thailand’s prime ministerial front-runner Pita Limjaroenrat is to be investigated over whether he was qualified to run in last month’s election, a top official said yesterday, in another setback as he battles to win backing to be prime minister.
Pita, the 42-year-old leader of the progressive Move Forward party, whose election victory stunned Thailand’s military-backed establishment, has faced multiple complaints from rivals, three of which the poll body has dismissed for late submission, while four others against the party have been thrown out.
However, Pita is by no means in the clear, with the commission looking into whether he was knowingly unfit to register as a parliamentary candidate because he owned shares in a media firm, which is prohibited under election rules.
Photo: Reuters
Pita has downplayed the issue, arguing the shares in the firm, ITV, have since been transferred and the company was not an active media organization. He faces disqualification, up to 10 years in jail and 20 years banned from politics if found guilty.
“There is sufficient information to suspect that the candidate is unfit or prohibited from seeking public office, according to electoral regulations, to further investigate Pita,” election commission chairman Ittiporn Boonprakong said in a text message.
The opposition Move Forward and Pheu Thai parties thumped conservative opponents allied with the military in a resounding rejection of nearly nine years of government led or backed by the army after its 2014 coup.
They have formed an alliance with six smaller parties, but Pita’s bid to be prime minister and form the government is expected to face resistance in a conservative-leaning Thai Senate that was appointed by the military. A bicameral vote on a prime minister is expected by August, with weeks of uncertainty ahead.
The Move Forward party’s anti-establishment agenda clashes with the interests of a royalist military and old-money business elite that has influenced politics for decades in Southeast Asia’s second-biggest economy.
The party won huge support among young people with a platform of institutional change, including reducing the army’s political role, undoing monopolies and reviewing a controversial law against insulting the monarchy.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
RSS