BANGKOK - Thailand's benchmark SET Index dropped over seven points on Jan 31, immediately after the Constitutional Court delivered its verdict ordering the election-winning Move Forward Party (MFP) to stop its campaign to amend the royal defamation law.
The stock market jitters echo larger fears about the ruling's most likely consequence - the party's dissolution, and the subsequent entrenchment of conflict in a society still trying to heal from two decades of political polarisation.
"The MFP is another step closer
to the edge of the cliff," says Dr Surachanee Sriyai, a visiting fellow at the ISEAS - Yusof Ishak Institute.
While the court on Jan 31 did not order the party to be dissolved, it laid the groundwork for that to happen. It declared the actions of the MFP's campaign to amend the lese majeste law a threat to the "democratic system of governance with the king as the head of state", and therefore unconstitutional.
Riding on this verdict, activist lawyer and former senator Ruangkrai Leekitwattana on Feb 1 filed a petition to dissolve the party. He had tried to do that twice in 2023, but was rejected by the Election Commission. Many now see the writing on the wall for the MFP, however.
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