That's compounded fears of reigniting a power struggle between influential
conservatives and popular elected parties.
The Constitutional Court has been asked to rule on the
poll body's request to dissolve the 2023 election winner.
Move Forward. It comes after the same court in January
found its campaign to amend a law protecting the monarchy
from criticism risk risking undermining the country's system of governance
with the king as head of state.
Move forwards anti establishment agenda Having won huge support among
voters.
Let's cross now to Matt Hunt in Bangkok.
What more can you tell us about the verdict?
That's right. So the verdict here at the Constitutional Court
in Bangkok was just delivered to some cheers from people
waiting here.
For several hours ahead of it.
But first of all, the the guilty verdict means that
the Move Forward Party,
which is still or was the largest opposition party in
Parliament,
is now dissolved. And so those members of the Move
Forward Party will have 60 days to either rejoin another
party or perhaps join a party that is created in
its wake. However, the leadership of the party,
Mr. Peter Lim Dalaman, the former leader who is still
here and people are waiting for him just here behind
me to exit,
has said that they will continue to fight on.
And for the last couple of weeks ahead of this
decision,
they've said that they have some plans for future.
So I expect that after following this decision,
and here he comes now following this decision,
there will be something new for this party.
But I'm not sure exactly what it is.
Matt, how do you expect the Thai public to react
to the ruling?
As I said, there is a group of people here
who often come to these these types of events that
were protectors of Section 112 or the last Manchester State
law as they describe themselves.
And they were hearing when they heard the verdict because
this is what they've been fighting for.
However, the large majority of people were expecting this to
be the case because the dissolution of opposition parties in
Thailand one is not new,
but also this was the party that won the most
votes in the tie 2023 general election,
14 million people voted for this party and so.
People are upset. They've been upset for months.
This decision has been coming for several months.
It's been announced. Delays, delays,
delays. As you can see,
they're moving here behind me now.
Mr. Linda is coming, but it seems that they're going
to move back to the party headquarters where people have
organized some form of demonstration.
So it is possible that this goes now from the
courts of the street,
but we'll have to wait and see what happens.
Matt Hunt reporting there from Bangkok.
Thank you.