Thailand's opposition parties resolve dispute over role of House speaker

Thailand's two main opposition parties have reportedly reached an agreement on the allocation of cabinet seats, including the role of Speaker of the House, in the country's next government after weeks of intense negotiations.

The progressive Move Forward Party (MFP) won the May 14 election with 151 seats out of 500 in the House of Representatives, just ahead of the opposition Phu Thai Party (PTP), which won 141 seats.

For several weeks, the MFP and PTP have been trying to settle the issue of which party would get the important position of Speaker of the House to be chosen at the first joint sitting of Parliament on July 4. The PTP initially demanded the position for itself, while the MFP insisted that as the party that won the majority of seats, it should be entitled to the position, which is important for implementing an ambitious progressive agenda in parliament.

According to a daily news briefing published today by the print edition of the Thai Enquirer, the PTP has agreed to support the MFP's candidate for the Speaker's post, in turn being allowed to appoint its representatives to the posts of two deputy speakers.

The Phu Thai Party, linked to former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, will also get 15 ministerial posts, compared to 14 for the MFP, which of course intends to nominate its leader Pita Limjaroenratha as prime minister.

The decisions were made after working groups of the two parties met yesterday. While Pita is in a privileged position to form Thailand's next government, it remains to be seen whether he has enough support to win a joint session of parliament to choose a prime minister next month.

The eight-party coalition that includes the MFP has 312 seats in parliament, 64 fewer than needed to overcome the likely opposition of the 250-member Senate appointed by the military junta that ruled from 2014-2019. Pita is confident he will have sufficient parliamentary support. According to Reuters, he was asked on Tuesday how much support he had received from the Senate, to which he replied, "enough for my appointment as prime minister."

Critically, the Thai Enquirer reports, the two parties promise to remain united even if Pita fails to attract the necessary votes to select a prime minister.

Phu Thai leader Chonlanan Sreekai said yesterday that the proposal was not yet a final decision and that the two parties would wrap up their talks at a meeting on July 2, ahead of a scheduled vote on the speaker of the house on July 4. But he also cooled talk that if Pita fails to get the necessary votes to become prime minister, the PTP could form its own coalition with more conservative parties. "We owe it to the will of 25 million people to link us to Move Forward. Even though we may want to leave and do whatever we want, we can't do that because it's not fair to the people," Chonlanan said, according to the publication.

It is hard to say whether this represents a genuine and binding pact between the MFP and PTP, or simply a way to reduce recent media speculation about the growing divide between the two. Whatever the case, political alliances will remain fragile, and negotiations in prostration will mean little if there is a sharp turn in the political winds.