Move Forward vows three missions to get rid of ‘Prayut Regime’

The opposition Move Forward Party on Wednesday vowed to get rid of the “Prayut Regime” through constitutional changes, military reform, and breaking up monopolies of conglomerates with connections to the regime.

Move Forward marked the 10th anniversary of the May 22, 2014, coup by complaining that the regime of coup leader General Prayut Chan-o-cha had continued even though Prayut had left office as prime minister.

Move Forward itself tasted the bitter pill of the coup’s legacy last year. It won the May 14 general election but its candidate for prime minister, then party leader Pita Limjaroenrat, was blocked from becoming PM by 250 senators installed by the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO), the former junta.

In a statement posted on the party’s Facebook page, Move Forward said two elections have been held since the 2014 coup but Thais didn’t feel the country had really changed.

“This is because of the Prayut Regime, which is bigger than General Prayut Chan-o-cha,” the statement said.

It described the Prayut Regime as a network of people with vested interests in connections to the coup leaders.

The party said the members of the regime joined forces to protect their power and interests by designing the structure and mechanisms of state agencies to be under their control.

The statement said the regime designed political, economic and social structures to enable the undemocratic power to veto the people’s mandate and allow political interference and market domination by members of the regime.

Move Forward said that although the Pheu Thai-led coalition had caused General Prayut and former deputy prime minister General Prawit Wongsuwan to disappear from politics, the legacy of the 2014 coup remains.

As a result, Move Forward has three major missions to wipe out the coup legacy and the Prayut Regime, the statement said.

First of all, Move Forward is seeking a new constitution to be written by a Constitution Drafting Assembly (CDA) 100% of whose members will be elected by the people.

The party said the current charter, which came into force in 2017, was written with the goal of perpetuating the power of the regime through senators, the Constitutional Court and other independent organisations that can interfere with the people’s mandate.

Move Forward said the new charter would prevent the court from endorsing the coup makers as the legitimate sovereigns and would ban amnesty for the coup makers.

The party said it has submitted a bill to amend the national referendum act and a bill to amend the charter to pave the way for the rewriting of a new charter by 200 elected CDA members.

It said it has also submitted a bill to annul all orders of the NCPO, but the bill has yet to be endorsed by the prime minister.

For the second mission, the party said it would seek to reform the military by putting the armed forces under the rule of civilians with an ultimate goal of distancing the military from civilian politics.

Move Forward said the armed forces still have power over civilian governments and military leaders are like warlords who control large plots of land and carry out business without being monitored by the people.

The party said it has submitted a bill to amend the Defence Ministry Administrative Act to abolish special powers of the military and to restructure the Defence Council and rewrite conditions for appointing and promoting generals.

The party said the bill has been put on the House agenda and is scheduled to be deliberated in the next parliamentary session.

The party added that it is also drafting a bill to reform the military court to prevent double standards between military and civilian justice processes.

For the third mission, Move Forward has submitted a free-trade bill to reform the committee on free trade so that it could prevent monopolies by large conglomerates with more efficiency. The bill has been put on the House agenda and is scheduled to be deliberated in the next parliamentary session.

The party reasoned that large conglomerates with connections to the Prayut Regime have expanded to dominate markets covering goods that are concerned with the people’s living, including consumer goods, food and electricity.

As a result, the party said such monopolies must be broken up through the new free-trade law.