A key party linked to Thailand’s powerful Shinawatra clan was yesterday dissolved by a court, just weeks before a general election, over its ill-starred bid to front a princess as a candidate for prime minister.
Thai Raksa Chart, which is tied to former Thai prime ministers Thaksin and Yingluck Shinawatra, proposed Princess Ubolratana as its prime ministerial candidate if its bloc emerged with a lower house majority after the March 24 election.
It was an unprecedented move in a constitutional monarchy where royals are officially above the political fray and prompted a rare public rebuke by her younger brother, Thai King Maha Vajiralongkorn, who issued a royal command declaring the party’s move “inappropriate.”
Photo: EPA-EFE
Thai Raksa Chart was found guilty of committing an act “hostile to the constitutional monarchy” by the Thai Constitutional Court, which unanimously voted to dissolve the party.
Party executives — including two Shinawatra family members — were also banned from politics for a decade.
“The monarchy is above politics and to maintain political neutrality, the king, the queen and princesses can never exercise political rights by casting votes,” Judge Nakharin Mektrairat said at the end of an extensive ruling.
Dissolution is a hammer blow to the prospects of the powerful Shinawatras winning a parliamentary majority in the election.
Thai Raksa Chart was established to back up the Shinawatras’ main political vehicle, Pheu Thai, which won the 2011 elections by a landslide.
Conversely, its downfall — the party lasted for just four months — is a major fillip to its army-allied rivals, who are fielding junta leader, Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, as their candidate.
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