Reuters: <\/p>\n\n\n\n
BANGKOK, May 18- The leader of the progressive Move Forward Party that secured a stunning victory in Thailand’s election this week said on Thursday he was confident of building more support and being able form a stable and balanced government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Speaking at a press conference as part of an alliance of eight parties with about 313 of the 500 lower house seats, leader Pita Limjaroenrat said there was a team in place to muster support to ensure the alliance could secure enough seats to rule.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“There is a committee and negotiation team in place to find out what I further need, the seats I need, so there is stability and no loss of balance in governing,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He added: “My coalition is taking shape. And we have a very clear roadmap from today and until the day I become PM.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pita and his allies say they have a mandate from the electorate to end nearly a decade of conservative, army-backed rule in Southeast Asia’s second-largest economy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The alliance overnight added two more members and three seats but it still appears short of the 376 votes needed from the 750-member bicameral legislature to vote in a prime minister to form a government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The challenge for the alliance is winning votes from the 250 members of the upper house Senate, a chamber that was appointed by a junta after a 2014 coup and has a record of siding with army-backed parties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Those parties were thrashed in Sunday’s election by Move Forward and the populist heavyweight Pheu Thai, but the prospect of a pro-military bloc forming a minority government – assuming they have the Senate’s support – cannot be ruled out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pita’s alliance was dealt a blow late on Wednesday when Bhumjaithai, the third-place finisher with a projected 70 seats, indicated it would not back any prime minister who supports amending or abolishing a law against insulting the monarchy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Move Forward has campaigned on changing the lese-majeste law, under which at least 200 people have been charged in the past few years, many from a youth-led protest movement. The law prescribes jail terms of up to 15 years for each perceived offence, with some given sentences of several decades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Asked about that, Pita said: “That is their matter. The eight parties have a position and clarity.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He also said he was not concerned about any pending cases filed with the election commission seeking to disqualify him over shares he allegedly held in a media company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I’m not worried … I understand there are many dimensions in politics,” he said. “As a public figure I can accept the investigation.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Reuters: BANGKOK, May 18- The leader of the progressive Move Forward Party that secured a stunning victory in Thailand’s election this week said on Thursday he was confident of building more support and being able form a stable and balanced government. Speaking at a press conference as part of an alliance of eight parties with about 313 of the 500 lower house seats, leader Pita Limjaroenrat said there was a team in place to muster support to ensure the alliance could secure enough seats to rule. “There is a committee and negotiation team in place to find out what I… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":32150,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-in-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32149"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32149\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32151,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32149\/revisions\/32151"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/32150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}