Former leader of Move Forward Party, Pita Limjaroenrat, center, shakes hands with his supporters at Move Forward Party headquarters in Bangkok.
| Photo Credit: AP
Thailand’s most popular politician, Pita Limjaroenrat, was banned from politics for 10 years and his party dissolved on Wednesday over his attempt to reform the kingdom’s archaic royal defamation laws. The country has been mired in cyclical political crises since a military coup in 2006.
The Constitutional Court said it voted unanimously to dissolve the party because its campaign proposal to amend the law amounted to an attempt to overthrow the nation’s constitutional monarchy.
The Move Forward Party was unable to form a government after topping the polls because members of the Senate, at that time a conservative military-appointed body, refused to endorse its candidate for prime minister.
Here is a look at the turbulent two decades that led to the pivotal decision by the Constitutional Court.
