Srisuwan Janya, secretary-general of the Association for the Protection of the Constitution, will submit a petition to the Election Commission on Monday asking the polling agency to dissolve the Thai Raksa Chart (TRC) Party for nominating Princess Ubolratana as its candidate for prime minister in the next election in violation of the laws.
Mr Srisuwan, a well-known environmental and political activist, declared his intention to do this on his Facebook page on Sunday.
In his Facebook post, Mr Srisuwan said the TRC's nomination of Princess Ubolratana as its prime ministerial candidate on Feb 8 had become a highly-contentious issue widely discussed among people in Thai society.
Mr Srisuwan said it raised the question whether the nomination of the princess, who is a member of the royal family of the Chakri Dynasty, was lawful -- although TRC insisted it had properly followed Section 89 of the 2017 constitution.
After His Majesty the King issued a royal command on the night of Feb 8, saying that it is inappropriate for the princess to get involved in politics as she is a member of the royal family and this is not allowed by the constitution, it is now clear that TRC had nominated an unqualified person as stated in the second paragraph of Section 13 and Section 14(2) of the MP election act of 2018 and this was in blatant violation of Item 17 of the EC regulation governing the election campaigns, he argued.
The head office of Thai Raksa Chart was quiet on Saturday after the party cancelled campaign activites. (Photo by Wichan Charoenkiatpakul)
The activist said that in the name of the Association for the Protection of the Constitution, he would submit a petition for the EC to rule that TRC had violated relevant laws in violation of Section 92(2) of the Political Party Act of 2017 -- and ask the Constitutional Court to dissolve the party.
Mr Srisuwan said he would submit the petition to the EC at the government office complex on Chaeng Watthana road on Monday, Feb 11, at 10am.
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