Pita suspended from parliament in fresh blow to PM bid
Thailand's constitutional court suspended reformist Pita Limjaroenrat on Wednesday, in another blow to his hopes of becoming the nation's next leader after a stunning election win. The court issued its suspension just as Pita was sitting in parliament for another day of deliberations on whether he could become prime minister, after his first attempt fell 51 votes short last week. Pita's Move Forward Party (MFP) has ridden high on the hopes of young and urban Thais wearied by nearly a decade of army-backed rule, but its efforts to form a government have stumbled since the May polls. Thailand's conservative establishment vehemently opposes the party's economic reform platform and its pledge to soften the kingdom's strict royal defamation laws. On Wednesday, the country's Constitutional Court announced it would take up a case on whether Pita should be disqualified from parliament altogether for owning shares in a media company, ordering him to leave the assembly in the meantime. "It was commanded that the respondent must suspend his role... until the Constitutional Court has made its decision," the court said in a statement. Lawmakers are forbidden from owning shares in media companies under Thailand's constitution, though the television station in question has not broadcast since 2007. Pita, Harvard-educated and wealthy from a family-run agrifood business, has said the shares were inherited from his father. Under Thai law, Pita remains eligible to stand as a candidate for prime minister but must leave the lower house and will be unable to vote. Dozens of his supporters, wearing the MFP's tangerine colours, shouted angrily at a heavy police cordon outside parliament after news of the suspension broke. Few expect his party to have made up last week's shortfall, and lawmakers aligned with the military immediately forced a debate on whether the law allowed Pita to be considered a second time. Thailand's senate is stacked with military appointees, with only 13 of 249 serving senators voting for Pita last week. (AFP)