Aidan JONES and Thanaporn PROMYAMYAI -
The billionaire leader of the newest and most dynamic force in Thai politics says he is “prepared” for jail as legal cases besiege his youth-focused party just weeks after it scooped up millions of votes in a general election.
Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit, the charismatic political newcomer whose radical agenda of social and economic reform captured millennial hearts and rattled the ruling junta, appeared at the Election Commission on Tuesday to explain a disputed share transfer. It is the latest of a battery of moves against Thanathorn and his Future Forward Party, which secured over six million votes in March 24 elections but is now hemmed in by 16 separate legal cases.
“I knew from the day we launched the party that the threats would come sooner or later,” he said on Monday from his mansion in a Bangkok suburb. “It is sooner than we thought.” The commission poses a real and immediate challenge.
It is expected to rule over the coming days on an allegation that Thanathorn breached election rules by owning shares in a media company. The 40-year-old insists the shares were divested weeks before he registered to run, rubbishing the charge as a political hatchet job.
The commission can suspend Thanathorn from political activity — a potential gut punch to his nascent movement, which relies heavily on his star power and the social media conversation he has started with younger voters. It could also forward his case to higher courts that can hand down heavy jail sentences for breaching election rules and can ultimately disband the party.
He also faces a sedition charge with a potential seven-year jail sentence. But Thanathorn struck a defiant note as his powerful political enemies close in. “I’m prepared mentally and physically for whatever comes,” the scion of an auto-parts fortune said.
He emerged from a meeting with Election Commissioners about the complaint late on Tuesday, telling reporters the atmosphere was “tense”. “No one can explain to me what I am meant to be guilty of,” he said, adding he would consider countersuits if the actions continued. “My patience has its limits.”
Future Forward has shaken up the Thai political landscape — long framed by loyalty to the royalist, conservative establishment or the populist and self-exiled ex-premier Thaksin Shinawatra. March’s poll was the first since Thailand’s junta seized power in 2014.
But a new government has yet to be declared amid allegations of vote-rigging and other political chicanery by the junta-allied party, which is desperate to return to power with a majority of
Lower House seats. — AFP
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