Thai election: Rivals derail winner’s PM bid

The Star

Thai prime ministerial hopeful Pita Limjaroenrat has been suspended from parliament with his nomination denied, in a fresh blow to his chances of becoming the country's next leader.  WATCH MORE: https://thestartv.com/c/news SUBSCRIBE: https://cutt.ly/TheStar LIKE: https://fb.com/TheStarOnline

Transcript

00:00 The leader of Thailand's election-winning Move Forward party has been suspended from

00:05 parliament and had his prime ministerial nomination denied.

00:10 In a dramatic sequence of events on Wednesday, Peter Limjaroenrat was first suspended as

00:16 an MP by the Constitutional Court.

00:19 It was the latest twist in a two-decade battle for power between elected parties and Thailand's

00:24 conservative military establishment.

00:28 Peter won an election in May on a reformist agenda, pledging to amend Thailand's strict

00:33 royal defamation laws.

00:35 His victory over military-backed parties was widely considered to be a clear public rejection

00:41 of nine years of government controlled by generals.

00:45 The court said on Wednesday he was suspended over an allegation he violated election rules

00:50 by holding shares in a media firm.

00:53 Peter denies that, arguing the company had not engaged in mass media operations for years.

00:59 In an interview with Reuters earlier this week, the 42-year-old warned he was unwilling

01:04 to back down.

01:05 "When people ask me, 'How do you feel that you have failed?'

01:11 And I would respond back to them that I won, I formed and I got blocked.

01:16 I didn't fail.

01:19 I won the election, I formed the coalition and I got blocked by the appointed Senate.

01:25 Let us be clear on that.

01:26 So if you think about it in this perspective, I'm honoured to be nominated and I'm grateful

01:31 for how far we have come together to this point.

01:36 It's not a sprint, it's a marathon and I have the stamina to run for a long, long time."

01:44 Despite his optimism, the US-educated liberal leader now has an extremely difficult path

01:50 to the top job, requiring him to overcome fierce resistance from a royalist military

01:56 at odds with his party's anti-establishment ambitions.

02:01 Wednesday's decision came just before Peter was due to contest a second parliamentary

02:06 premiership vote, after losing the first one last week.

02:11 Lawmakers subsequently voided his nomination.

02:15 Although the suspension does not bar Peter from running for prime minister, it is not

02:19 immediately clear whether his eight-party alliance would seek to re-nominate him.

02:24 A caretaker government has run Thailand since March.

02:27 -

02:33 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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