The public is beginning to see who is really the mastermind behind the attempt to prevent Pita Limjaroenrat, the Move Forward Party candidate, from becoming Thailand’s next prime minister. So far, only the ‘complainants’ are in the spotlight.
After the election, in which the Move Forward Party won and now forms an 8-party coalition government, Pita is accused of not being qualified enough to be prime minister because he holds shares in the mass media broadcaster ITV, although the broadcaster has not been in operation since 2007.
On Friday, June 9, the Election Commission of Thailand announced that it will investigate the petition to determine whether Pita violated Article 151. The allegation is that he stood for election knowing he lacked the qualifications. This is a criminal offence punishable by 1-10 years in prison if convicted.
On Sunday, however, news reporter Thapanee Eadsrichai, who used to work for ITV, revealed the suspicious attempt to ban Pita from the Prime Minister’s chair on Channel 3’s “3-Dimension News” programme. She presented a video recording of the annual shareholders’ meeting of ITV Public Company Limited held on April 26, 2023, proving that the report of the meeting was edited to make it appear that ITV was still operating as a mass media company.
The crucial moment came when a shareholder named Phanuwat Kwanyuen asked during the meeting, “Does ITV engage in media or television-related activities?” Then, Kim Sirithaweechai, the chairman of the board of directors who chaired the meeting, replied, “Currently, the company is not active. We have to wait for the outcome of the lawsuit first.”
However, in the meeting report, the answer was changed to “The company is currently operating in accordance with its objectives and has filed financial statements and corporate income tax returns as usual.”
Chaitawat Tulathon, general secretary of the Move Forward Party, said the party was confident that the Article 151 allegations aimed at incriminating Pita lacked substantial evidence. The party is also raising questions about the manipulation of the ITV shareholders’ meeting reports and whether this is a breach of the law.
Move Forward also wants to know the extent to which IN-Touch Holdings, ITV’s major shareholder, was involved in manipulating the reports to deviate from the truth during the meeting, as the review and amendment of the meeting reports were carried out by executives from IN-Touch’s legal department and corporate secretariat.
In addition, Chaitawat pointed out an inconsistency in the minutes of ITV’s second board meeting in 2023, where a resolution was suddenly passed recognising the company’s business model as an “advertising provider that started generating revenue in the second quarter of 2023” He stressed that this contradicted information given just two days earlier by Kim, the chairman of the shareholders’ meeting, who stated that “it “would be extremely difficult for the company to do any business until the proceedings are concluded”.
This effort coincides with Pita’s statement that there is a movement to revive the ITV and attack him. Regarding the people behind this process, Chaitawat said that the Move Forward Party is beginning to identify those involved and believes that the public can speculate about the parties involved. However, it is too early to accuse anyone specifically and it is not yet clear if there is a political party behind the scenes.
Srettha Thavisin, Pheu Thai Party candidate for prime minister, said if there was evidence of forged documents, a fair investigation should be conducted. He added that as the second largest party, the Pheu Thai Party’s role was to support and encourage the eight-party ruling coalition to continue its work.
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