Thai comeback kid Pita urges ‘decisive’ People’s Party win to break establishment’s grip

Thailand’s most popular political figure Pita Limjaroenrat has exhorted the public to fight apathy and vote in droves at a February 8 election for his reformist party, which remains the biggest threat to the power of the country’s entrenched elite.Pita led the reformist People’s Party – then called Move Forward – to win the last election in 2023 on a record 76 per cent voter turnout, stunning the establishment as it gobbled up seats from political dynasties and surged into the heartlands of Pheu Thai, until then Thailand’s largest party.But old powers soon combined to sideline the new political force.Pita was blocked from becoming prime minister by parliament and banned from politics for 10 years in 2024 by judges for an attempt to reform the defamation law that shields the monarchy. The party was dissolved and pushed into opposition.Three short-lived governments later, Thailand once more goes to the polls.Caretaker Prime Minister Anutin Charnivarkul holds the aces for the conservative bloc, but the rebranded People’s Party is hoping it still has the hearts of the public, despite shedding its most radical proposal – monarchy reform – to avoid fresh legal troubles.