When Thailand’s royalist military staged a coup in 2014, the generals wrote a constitution that ensured it would be hard for elected politicians to take power. Those efforts paid off this week.
Although his party won the most seats in a May 14 election, and he commands the support of a comfortable majority of elected lawmakers, 42-year-old Pita Limjaroenrat saw his bid to become prime minister blocked yesterday by a military-appointed Senate, which serves as a sort of insurance card for the establishment.
While Pita can keep trying to form a government, the likely outcome is one that Thailand has seen many times before: Some sort of compromise that ensures nothing threatens the interests of an entrenched royalist elite.
Indeed, stocks linked to major Thai tycoons rallied today after the setback for Pita, who had pledged to break up business monopolies.
The majority of the nation’s 70 million people, meanwhile, will continue to see their living standards stagnate compared with their neighbors.
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