The party that won most votes in Thailand's last election has been banned by the country's constitutional court over its campaign promise to reform laws that set long jail sentences for criticizing the powerful monarchy.
Thailand has long been torn between a conservative establishment seeking to preserve the power and status of the monarchy of King Maha Vajiralongkorn, versus those who are demanding reforms to bring greater democracy and to reduce the sway of royalty and the armed forces.
On Wednesday, the progressive Move Forward Party was ordered dissolved by the constitutional court. Its former leader, Pita Limjaroenrat, was banned from politics for 10 years along with another 10 party leaders.
The judges had ruled earlier in the year that the party's call for reforming the lese majeste law, which carries a jail sentence of up to 15 years for insulting the king or other royals, amounted to seeking the destruction of the monarchy.
"They don't know that the highest power in the land is not them, it is the people," said Pannika Wanich, a former member of parliament from a forerunner of Move Forward, previously dissolved on different grounds.
The ban on Move Forward, which won nearly 40 percent of the vote in the 2023 election, was an undoubted victory for the conservative establishment.
"It's a major victory. Not the ultimate victory, since some of the disbanded party members did not get 10-year bans from politics, and there is a long history of disbanded parties in Thailand reforming and trying to run again under other names and with slightly different leaders," said Josh Kurlantzick, a senior fellow for South and Southeast Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations think tank.
"It is a huge victory—and yet it shows that ultimately it's probably going to have to be a combination of electoral victory, massive street protest, and a stepdown to some extent by the authorities to finally bring change in Thailand," Kurlantzick told Newsweek.
At the pinnacle of Thailand's establishment is King Vajiralongkorn, 72, who has been calculated by numerous wealth rankings to be the world's richest monarch, with a fortune estimated to range upward of $30 billion.
The Royal Palace made no comment on the Constitutional Court's decision and has a policy of not speaking on such decisions, or of responding to requests for comment.
The royalist Thai Phakdee Party welcomed the court decision and said it would be "an important result that stops the actions of the process of eroding and undermining the monarchy."
Well over 200 people currently face prosecution under royal insult laws.
Democracy has seen frequent ups and downs in Thailand, which was ruled until 2023 by a general who took power in a 2014 coup before turning himself into a civilian prime minister.
The ban on Move Forward raised a concern over backsliding on democracy, beyond the country of over 70 million people within the Southeast Asian region, commentators said.
"The decision will further undermine rule of law and democracy in the region, which is becoming a regional trend. Also, young people will either lose faith in the democratic process or they will fight back," Charles Santiago, a former Malaysian member of parliament and regional democracy campaigner, told Newsweek.
The Move Forward members of parliament who were not banned by the constitutional court will be able to remain as lawmakers, but must move to another party. They are widely expected to transfer to another party and remain in opposition.
Party leader Chaithawat Tulathon, among those who were banned, said the court had set a dangerous precedent.
"In the long term, the court's ruling may cause the democratic ruling system with the King as head of the state to mutate into another system," Thailand's Bangkok Post newspaper quoted him as telling a news conference.
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