OPPOSITION lawmaker Pita Limjaroenrat (pic) returned to parliament a day after the country’s top court cleared him of allegations he had violated election rules, vowing to scrutinise government policies including a multi-billion-baht cash handout scheme.
Pita resumed his lawmaker duties yesterday, after the Constitutional Court said his equity stake in a defunct media firm did not violate election rules, thus acquitting him of the first of two high-profile legal challenges he had to face this month and ending his six-month suspension.
The Election Commission brought the case last year against Pita, 43, after his reformist Move Forward Party won the most parliamentary seats in a general election in May.
Shortly after the vote, a pro-democracy coalition made him its candidate for prime minister.
But the media shareholding allegations were cited to thwart his bid for premiership and threatened to disqualify him as a lawmaker.
A different multi-party coalition that excluded Move Forward was then forged, backed by the military-appointed Senate, resulting in Srettha Thavisin, becoming Thailand’s prime minister and finance minister in August.
“I see it as a detour. There’s still the destination that I have to get to, even with six months lost,” Pita said at Parliament House.
Among his focuses will be a scrutiny into some key government policy proposals, he said, including a 500 billion baht (RM66bil) cash handout programme to most Thai adults that has spurred concerns over long-term fiscal discipline.
Move Forward may also reinstate Pita as its leader in an annual party meeting scheduled in April, after he stepped down last year following his suspension.
However, Pita’s challenges are far from over.
He and Move Forward will return to the Constitutional Court next week to hear another verdict about whether the charter was violated by the party’s campaign pledges to amend the lese majeste law that protects the monarchy from defamation, a much more serious allegation. — Bloomberg
