Move Forward elects party-list MP Chaithawat as chief on its path to becoming opposition leader
Chaithawat Tulathon was named new leader of the largest opposition party, Move Forward, at its general meeting on Saturday.
Party members voted 330-5 in his favour, while three abstained, at the meeting held at the party’s headquarters in the Thai Summit Building.
Chaithawat, 45, has served as the party’s caretaker secretary-general after Pita Limjaroenrat stepped down on September 15 to pave the way for his successor to become the next opposition leader.
Pita, the initial frontrunner to become Thailand’s 30th prime minister, realised there was a slim chance of him being appointed as opposition leader any time soon. This was because he had been suspended as an MP pending a ruling by the Constitutional Court on whether he contested the election while knowingly holding media shares – a violation of the law.
Observers expect a ruling on the case by December.
Pita was present at the party’s general meeting on Saturday when the new party leader and other executives were elected.
Also attending was party-list MP Parit Wacharasindhu, who is tipped to become the party’s new spokesman and other key party figures.
Chaithawat, a party-list MP, was born on October 15, 1978, in the southern province of Songkhla and earned a master’s in environmental engineering from Chulalongkorn University.
He began his activism in his school days, serving as secretary-general of the Student Federation of Thailand. After graduating, he began working at the Political and Electoral Development Institute.
In 2002, Chaithawat set up the Same Sky publishing house, which is known for publishing books criticising Thailand’s political and social establishments. He served as its editor until 2018.
That was the year Chaithawat entered politics as co-founder of the Future Forward Party. He initially served as the new party’s deputy secretary-general.
In its maiden general election in 2019, Future Forward won as many as 80 MP seats out of 500 seats contested. However, the party was dissolved by a court order in February 2020 for receiving donations from its leader Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit, which was deemed illegal.
Future Forward MPs then moved to their new home Move Forward, and Chaithawat became the new party’s first secretary-general.
In the May 14 general election, Move Forward won as many as 151 MP seats, the highest among the contesting parties. However, it failed to secure majority support for its leader Pita to become PM.
