The Constitutional Court has issued an order to suspend Pita Limjaroenrat from his parliamentary duties regarding ownership of media shares.

The activist network Respect My Vote submitted an open letter to senators and MPs yesterday (18 July), calling for them to approve a Prime Minister candidate nominated by the majority in the House of Representatives.

As the Constitutional Court prepares to deliberate petitions filed against the Move Forward Party (MFP) for campaigning to amend the royal defamation law and against its leader Pita Limjaroenrat for holding media shares, activist groups have called on the Court to drop the petitions.

After Pita Limjaroenrat failed in his first bid to become Thailand’s next prime minister with 324 votes from both houses combined, of which only 13 were from the senate, a public gathering under the slogan ‘Respect My Vote’ called for the senators to respect the people’s consensus.

A protest caravan visited the headquarters of the Army, Navy and Police on Sunday (16 July) to demand that military and police commanders appointed as senators resign from the Senate.

Attempts to disqualify Move Forward Party leader Pita Limjaroenrat and block his bid to become the next Prime Minister have sparked a wave of protests during the past week in several provinces calling for the Senate and the House of Representative to approve his nomination as Prime Minister, as his party won the most seats in the last general election.

The Move Forward Party (MFP) is willing to let the Pheu Thai Party (PTP) form a government if the MFP is ultimately unable to do so.

The Supreme Court on Monday (10 July) sentenced Tharit Pengdit, former Director-General of the Department of Special Investigation (DSI), to 2 years in prison on charges of abuse of power and malfeasance filed against him for his investigation of the 2010 crackdown against the Red Shirts.

In the afternoon parliamentary session of 13 July 2023 to select a new PM, the royal defamation law remained the hot topic.

Pita Limcharoenrat, the leader of the Move Forward Party, has lost his first attempt to become Prime Minister when he was unable to secure the necessary 375 votes from parliament.

Senators and some members of parliament expressed their reluctance to vote for Pita Limcharoenrat, the sole Prime Minister candidate from the Move Forward Party (MFP), citing the iTV share case and his party's campaign to amend Article 112 as their primary justifications for withholding support.

The highlights of a morning session of the parliamentary session, which was held to select a new Prime Minister with Pita Limjaroenrat as the only candidate nominated for the position. However, the outgoing government coalition parties continue to strongly oppose Pita.