Thai PM candidate Pita open to managing pace of reform agenda
BANGKOK, July 18 (Reuters) - Thailand’s prime ministerial hopeful said on Tuesday he was willing to manage the pace of his Move Forward party’s ambitious reform drive if he becomes leader, but vowed no retreat from a plan to change a law that forbids insulting the monarchy.
In an interview with Reuters on the eve of his second bid to win the top job, Pita Limjaroenrat, who led his party to election victory in May, described efforts by the military establishment to block him as like a “broken record” and said Thailand had entered a new era with a public hankering for change.
Pita, 42, plans to contest his second parliamentary vote on the premiership on Wednesday, after failing last week to win the required backing of more than half of the legislature, as the conservative, military-appointed Senate closed ranks to thwart him.
“It was absolutely expected, the same thing, same venue. Broken record. But the sentiment of the era has changed,” he said in the interview.
“Despite what happens tomorrow there has been progress in society. They demand something new, something fresh.”
Buoyed by massive youth support for its disruptive, anti-establishment reform agenda, Move Forward was the surprise winner of the May 14 election, thrashing conservative rivals in what was seen as a resounding rejection of nearly a decade of government led or backed by the royalist military.
But it is hamstrung by a constitution drafted by the military, which makes it very difficult for elected parties to form a government without the endorsement of the Senate, which typically votes in line with the powerful army and conservative establishment.
