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.
‘GROSS NEGLIGENCE?’ Despite a spleen typically being significantly smaller than a liver, the surgeon said he believed Bryan’s spleen was ‘double the size of what is normal’ A Florida surgeon who is facing criminal charges after allegedly removing a patient’s liver instead of his spleen has said he is “forever traumatized” by that person’s death. In a deposition from November last year that was recently obtained by NBC, 44-year-old Thomas Shaknovsky described the death of 70-year-old William Bryan as an “incredibly unfortunate event that I regret deeply.” Bryan died after the botched surgery; and last month, a grand jury in Tallahassee indicted Shaknovsky on a charge of manslaughter. “I’m forever traumatized by it and hurt by it,” Shaknovsky added, also saying that wrong-site surgeries can happen “during
Former Chinese ministers of national defense Wei Fenghe(魏鳳和) and Li Shangfu (李尚福) were both sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve over graft charges, state news agency Xinhua reported on Thursday, underscoring the severity of the purge in the military. The armed forces have been one of the main targets of a broad corruption crackdown ordered by Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) after coming to power in 2012. The purges reached the elite Rocket Force, which oversees nuclear weapons as well as conventional missiles, in 2023. Earlier this year they escalated further, resulting in the removal of the top general in
New Zealand is open to expanding its frigate fleet beyond its current two vessels, with New Zealand Minister of Defence Chris Penk saying “no options are off the table” as the government weighs buying new warships from Japan or the UK. The government yesterday said it is looking to replace its two aging Anzac-class frigates, which were both commissioned almost 30 years ago. The UK’s Type 31 and Japan’s Mogami-class warships are the options under consideration. Speaking in an interview, Penk said there is potential to increase the number of frigates the nation purchases. “We need a certain amount of capability as a
The Philippine Coast Guard yesterday said it deployed aircraft to issue radio warnings to a Chinese research ship in a disputed area of the South China Sea “swarming” with vessels from Beijing’s so-called maritime militia. The research vessel Xiang Yang Hong 33 (向陽紅33), which is capable of supporting submersible craft, was operating near a reef in the contested Spratly Islands (Nansha Islands, 南沙群島), which Taiwan also claims, the Philippine Coast Guard said. The Chinese ship was deploying a service boat toward the Spratly’s Iroquois Reef on Wednesday when it was spotted by a coast guard plane, “confirming ongoing unauthorized [marine scientific research]
RSS