11 Future Forward candidates hit back at Srisuwan

Future Forward Party election candidates targeted by Srisuwan Janya filed a complaint with police on Thursday, accusing the activist of fabricating information about their shareholdings in media companies.

The 11 candidates asked Thung Song Hong police to take action against the secretary-general of the Association for the Protection of the Constitution after Mr Srisuwan asked the Election Commission (EC) to suspend endorsing them as MPs and ban them from politics. 

The group, led by Karom Pholpornklang, denied the allegation, saying the activist intentionally tried to get the Future Forward members disqualified with groundless information.

• Earlier stories: Abuse of media share law a growing concern

Four of the targets were constituency contestants and the others were the party-list candidates.

Mr Karom said some of them did hold shares in media companies but the companies had long since closed and their names were still on the shareholders' registry. Some of them, inlcuing him, hold shares in companies which operates printing and publication services but are not mass media. The rest hold shares in firms which had not done anything for more than five years, which he said are regarded as closed by law. 

Mr Srisuwan has denied he is targeting only anti-coup Future Forward as pro-regime Palang Pracharath and Pheu Thai, one of Future Forward's allies, are also on his petition lists.