First, they won the May 2014 general election, but then the Move Forward Party under the leadership of Pita Limjaroenrat failed to form a government. A little over a year later, on August 7, 2024, the party was dissolved by the Constitutional Court for pledging to amend the controversial lese majeste law and Pita, along with ten other party leaders, were banned from politics for 10 years.
The court basically said amending the law will eventually lead to the opening of a floodgate that would ultimately destroy the monarchy institution.
Then earlier this week, Pita announced he is leaving Thailand for Harvard on a fellowship. Two days after MFP was dissolved, a new party was announced. Now known as People’s Party, its new 37-year-old leader, Mr. Nattaphong Ruengpanyawut, did not wait for more than a day to pass before announcing the avatar party of MFP will continue to seek to push for the amendment of the anachronistic royal defamation law.
Some wonder if the new party, or the old party in a new bottle, which has managed to raise over 20 million baht in public donations within the first week of its launch, is heading toward another eventual party dissolution.
The political spectators and the enemies of the People’s Party may be missing the point, however.
It is increasingly apparent to this writer that this political party, whether when it was originally known as Future Forward Party, then Move Forward Party, and now People’s Party, is on a mission to expose the reality of Thai politics and society and conscientize citizens through its defeats and sufferings. Perhaps this may even be the ultimate goal of the party, and not forming a government or being at the nexus of political power.
Think of a type of a reversed Truman Show, a reversed Political Truman Show, that is. The public have been unwittingly watching the triumphs and failures of the party under different names and different key protagonists, including Pita and its original founder of the now-dissolved Future Forward Party Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit, and colleagues, and one could not help but wonder if it is actually a ‘real-life show’ exposing how Thai society is in fact far from being democratic and lacking in fundamental rights, particularly the right to criticize, or at least say something negatively or critically about the monarchy.
Back in February 2020, when the then nearly two-year-old political party founded by Thanathorn and his colleagues was dissolved by the Charter Court because Thanathorn loaned 191 million baht to his own party and did not classify it as a donation, thus putting the party at risk of being unduly dominated by the man, which also included a 10-year political ban on Thanathorn, it eventually led to the birth of the monarchy-reform movement.
Hundred-thousands, if not millions, of young Thais became politicized and took to the streets on Bangkok to demand the institution be reformed to make it more in line with monarchies in the U.K., Sweden and Japan. These young voters also helped the iteration of the Future Forward Party, or Move Forward Party, win the general elections in May 2023. In the end, Pita failed to form a government after potential coalition partners say they want to have nothing to do with a political party that is bent on reforming the lese majeste law, if not the monarchy.
It was a rude awakening for the spectators and voters, but also a continued lesson in what is wrong with Thai society and politics. People from the pro-democracy camp learn from the travails of the party through its two iterations which necessitate the change in party leadership.
One way of looking at Future Forward/Move Forward/People’s Party is that these parties are not primarily about being in the government, but about educating the public in a prolonged fashion on what is wrong with Thailand through witnessing their political travail. In the end, the party may actually be seeking to change the system. When people’s consciences have been altered, there is no going back, and Thailand will be different and on course to eventually become a more equal society.
It is a reversed Political Truman Show, a political guerilla warfare, where many in the public feel angry at what’s happening. Even those hating Truman, or People’s Party and its leaders, may not be aware that they are helping the People’s Party achieve its goal by doing everything to show that political fair play does not exist in Thailand.
The more often this party, no matter what name it is called, gets dissolved, the more leaders banned from politics – the more people will become sympathetic and awake.
