The Move Forward Party must not lose the House speakership to other coalition parties if it wants to avoid problems in tabling any amendment to the lèse majesté law in the Parliament.
Piyabutr Saengkanokkul wrote on his Facebook page that politics is the art to make the things people think are impossible possible.
Piyabutr and other former Future Forward Party executives were banned from the politics for ten years after the Constitution dissolved the party in 2020. He is, however, regarded by many as the brains behind Move Forward.
The 152 House seats won by Move Forward are not enough to form the government, so it is necessary to enter into a coalition with the Pheu Thai party, which has 141 seats. This means some compromise is needed.
There have been news reports in the past few days that Pheu Thai wishes to take the House speaker’s chair.
Piyabutr insists, however, that Move Forward cannot let the position go to any other party.
The contents of the MoU, signed by all eight coalition parties and unveiled recently, clearly show that Move Forward has compromised on many points to make them acceptable to other parties.
Working in a coalition government, Move Forward will certainly need to compromise on many issues, including allocation cabinet portfolios and the declaration of government policies. Such compromises are usual in a coalition government, he wrote.
The compromises should not, however, extend to giving the House speakership to another party.
Move Forward has many manifesto promises to be pushed through Parliament, so it should have one of its own MPs as House speaker, to handle and control the agenda.
The important deliverables, he wrote, are amnesty laws for offences involving political expression and amendment of the lèse majesté law.
Neither issue is contained in the MoU, meaning the party has to submit them unilaterally, so the House speaker has to be the party’s MPs.
If not, there would certainly be problems. He concluded that Move Forward should consider this issue carefully and seriously.
