Dec. 23 (EUROPA PRESS) –
Thailand’s Prime Minister Prayuth Chan Ocha announced Friday that he has joined the ranks of a newly created party to run in the May 2023 general elections, despite a recent ruling limiting his term to a maximum for another two years.
Prayuth, who will become part of the Ruam Thai Sang Chart Party (United Thai Nation Party) once registration is complete, has stressed that it should be the voters who decide whether he should continue to serve as prime minister, the daily reported. Thai ‘The Nation’.
“I have worked hard for the population of all of Thailand, even in areas where there are no parliamentarians from the Palang Pracharath Party -to which he currently belongs- and others from the government coalition”, he defended, before insisting that “he important is to continue the work of the Government in a sustainable way”.
Thus, he has defended his relationship with the Palang Pracharath Party’s candidate for prime minister, Prawit Wongsuwan, who is currently deputy prime minister. In this sense, she has said that the relationship is “unbreakable” and has acknowledged that Prawit “has taken good care of her”.
Prayuth’s term would be limited to two years after the election after the Thai Constitutional Court ruled that he has been prime minister since 2017, when the current Magna Carta, which prohibits a prime minister from holding office for more than eight years, came into effect. in force.
The Constitutional Court thus determined that Prayuth had not yet completed his entire term and allowed him to return to office after a five-week suspension imposed following a lawsuit by the opposition Pheu Thai, who argued that the prime minister was already leading the country before being appointed chief executive in April 2017.
Thus, the opposition formation argued that the period in which Prayuth was in charge of the military junta that took power in 2014 should count, which implied that the retired general had exceeded the eight-year term stipulated in the Constitution of the country.
On the contrary, some followers of Prayuth argue that counting should start from the 2019 elections, the first since the current declaration of the Constitution. The elections will be held in May 2023, when the legislative mandate of the current government coalition expires.
