Move Forward party leader Pita Limjaroenrat said today (Saturday) that he is ready to step aside and let the Pheu Thai party take the lead in forming the next government, if his party fails, after trying their utmost, to get him selected as prime minister or to amend the Constitution to clip senators’ wings.
In the meantime, he urged the Thai people to join him in a nation-wide campaign to win over the hearts and minds of the senators, so they support his prime ministerial candidacy or the Move Forward Party’s constitutional amendment bill, to strip senators of their power to select the prime minister.
Pita insists on the party’s obligation to the people to form the government, noting that there is not much time and Thailand cannot move forward without a government.
The Move Forward party leader said that there are two battle fronts on which the people and the party must fight.
The first, he said, is the selection of the prime minister in the second joint sitting of the House and the Senate on July 19th. The second is the party’s bid to amend Section 272 of the Constitution to remove senators from the voting for prime ministerial candidates.
“We stand no chance if we cannot make the senators change their minds to be with us,” said Pita, as he urged the public to convey messages to all senators by all imaginable means “to vote for the prime minister mandated by the people or to revoke Section 272 of the charter.”
If these two battle are ultimately lost, he said he is ready to step aside and let the Pheu Thai party take the lead in forming the government among the eight coalition parties, under their memorandum of understanding.
“All Move Forward MPs will support any of the Pheu Thai party’s prime ministerial candidates,” said Pita.
Until that time, however, the embattled Move Forward party leader says that he will not give up, adding, though, that his party alone will not be able to win over the hearts and minds of the senators without the support of all Thai people.
