Prat quits, Pita seeks vote for PM in week of crisis for Thailand

BANGKOK - Thailand's former army chief and current Prime Minister Prayut Chan-ocha, who has ruled the country since the putsch nine years ago, said Tuesday he is leaving politics. The decision comes just days before a fateful vote that will decide whether the leader of the democratic camp can become the country's prime minister.

69-year-old Prayut toppled an elected government in 2014 - the 13th coup since the end of the absolute monarchy in 1932 at the instigation of the royalist army, which has never allowed democracy to take root in Thailand. All along, Prayuth has described himself as a soldier forced into politics to protect the country from instability. Reincarnated as''Limjaroenrat, who is set to take over as Prayuth, faces a crucial week in the battle to rule the country after his Movement Forward Party (MFP) won 151 seats in the lower house in May. Pita, 42, is drawing big crowds on a post-election tour of the country to drum up political support.

His path, however, is blocked by a constitution written by the outgoing government that says any new prime minister must win an absolute majority of 750 votes from the two houses of parliament. In the upcoming July 13 vote, Pete's Moving Forward leads the majority coalition in the lower house of representatives with 311 seats out of 500.

250-member Senate appointed by Prayuth specifically for the army to have a veto in''Parliament is likely to fail to support Pithu, leaving him without the necessary 376 votes to become prime minister.

Structural changes in Thailand

The majority of senators are arch-royalists who reject calls for reform of the strict Les Majestes law that protects the monarchy from criticism. Dozens of young pro-democracy protesters have been prosecuted under the law, which has carried penalties ranging from three to 15 years in prison over the past two years.

Pita also faces a legal challenge from the electoral commission, which is probing whether he deliberately concealed his ownership of media shares in a now-dissolved company when he ran for office.

"Because the senators support him, he could be the next prime minister," Chambers said of Prawit, Prayuth's second-in-command. "The consequences: huge, angry, anti-MFP demonstrations. "

Protests in Thailand

There are periodic mass protests in Thailand, often resulting in bloody riots. The IFP's "four Ds" campaign - demilitarization,''s democratization, decentralization and demonopolization of the economy - has attracted votes from voters across the country as 14 million people rejected the shrinking freedoms and slow-growing economy of the Prayut government.

"People here just need a new government, a new prime minister from the democracy camp," said Abdulloh Sadeh, 25, who ran for parliament representing his region hailing from Yala province, near the border with Malaysia, in the May 14 election. "I just want to see a fully democratic government," he added. "Structural change will not happen overnight, but when we have true democracy, real change will happen," he said.