Thanathorn blasts Thai military for creating “vicious circle” at New York forum
Future Forward Party leader Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit has used the 2018 Concordia Annual Summit in New York as a forum to lambast the Thai military for creating what he described as a vicious circle in Thailand’s politics.
The summit, a high-level nonpartisan forum that normally attracts some of the most important world and business leaders, was held early this week in parallel with the United Nations General Assembly.
In his speech, entitled “A turning Point in Thai Democracy”, Mr Thanathorn offered an explanation as to why Thailand possibly has the highest number of military coups in the world.
The root cause of this problem was a continual attempt to divide and rule, in which hatred and political conflicts among members of the public were created through malicious rumours, he said.
As political conflicts erupted, the military then stepped in to play a role of a hero leading the country to recover from political turmoil, he said.
But in reality, he said, it was only a group of some people monopolizing the country’s economy with a close tie with the military dictatorship system that keeps this vicious circle going.
In this hopeless political situation, he said, he decided to co-found Future Forward Party as a think tank that has been attracting influencers and leaders in all sectors to come and work together to offer a new hope for the Thai society, he said.
“Future Forward Party sees new people, especially the young ones, come and join the party just every day. This make us more and more confident that our hope to see democracy be restored in Thailand in a more sustainable way will come true,” he said.
“Our democracy was stolen and we’re fighting to reclaim it,” he said.
