“I don’t want to analyse this, but I think the National Council for Peace and Order [NCPO] should keep its eye on it,” said Deputy Prime Minister Wissanu Krea-ngam yesterday, adding that most political activities remained restricted.

“If lines are crossed, warnings will be made. If things go beyond that, we would have to ‘invite’ them to suspend [their activities],” he said.

His remarks came as Thanathorn’s name has attracted a robust online following his pledge to set up a political party with progressive law lecturer Piyabutr Saengkanokkul.

Despite not yet having a concrete plan about the party’s establishment, Thanathorn’s talk with The101.world on Facebook Live on Monday drew more than 100,000 viewers during the two-hour interview.

As part of the interview, Thanathorn said he had not concluded on a party name but it would certainly include the terms “country”, “Thai” or “democracy”.

The hashtag #helpThanathorn-namehisparty has since become a top Twitter trend.

Tweets with the hashtag range from serious and playful name suggestions to pitches of products for sale, and even messages from foreign Twitter users who have no idea who Thanathorn is.

However, people with related ideas have expressed hopes for new faces in politics.

“We should allow the younger generation to administer [the country]. We don’t know whether they are good or bad, but it’s worth a try. Those ‘uncles’ should take a rest,” said Twitter user @JAMPS14

“They don’t agree with [Article] 112 but it doesn’t mean they don’t want the monarchy. The ‘dinosaurs’ should not distort this,” said another user, @NONpayakphan, referring to Piyabutr, who previously proposed to amend the draconian Criminal Code’s Article 112 regarding lese majeste.

While the junta still has a ban in place against political gatherings of five or more people, prospective politicians have in effect expressed their stances since the Election Commission began to accept new party pre-registrations last week.

Many parties have also come forward with clear agendas to support Prime Minister General Prayut Chan-o-cha continuing in office after the election as an outsider premier following the 2017 charter’s mechanism.

The Election Commission late last week opened for the pre-registration of new political parties, with more than 40 groups having applied to set up political parties to contest the next general election.

One of the most talked-about aspiring new parties is one reportedly to be co-founded and supported by wealthy young businessman Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit, executive vice president of Thai Summit Group, the auto-parts manufacturing giant owned by his family.

The group has yet to register a new party with the EC, but it has been seen to be active on social media.

Wissanu said if a line were crossed, warnings would be sent out against ongoing social media moves deemed to be part of political campaigns by the group. Invitations for “talks” would follow if they committed any act beyond such social media activities, the government’s legal adviser added.

On Monday, Thanathorn gave another interview on Facebook Live, discussing the young generation and the future of politics.

Pornpetch said the meeeting hall of the parliamentary meeting would be completed around March next year, while another meeting hall for the Senators would be completed by the end of this year.

If that was the case, parliamentarians could move and work there, Pornpetch said.

Afterwards, the land plot of the present Parliament would be returned to the Bureau of the Royal Household, because it is actually a royal premise, Pornpetch added.

Paiboon said he submitted the request via the EC yesterday, and expects that the party can hold the first party meeting for its members at the end of this month.

The list of party leader, secretary-general and its executive members would become clear at the meeting, he said.

Paiboon’s party is among the first to have pre-registered with the EC since it began accepting applications from new political parties late last week. The EC will have 30 days to check and verify documents as well as the qualifications of party members as submitted before moving to the next process, which is registering parties.

Paiboon said his party is of the people, consisting of people from various fields including retired generals. The party has three prime goals to push: religious reforms, political reforms, and leveling up people’s power with people’s councils set up nationwide. It would also follow the national strategy, he added.

Paiboon did not hesitate to say that his party still stands firm on supporting Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha to take the premier post again after the election. He said Prayut is an honest man and capable of running the country, compared with other choices.

Ket red-shirt leader Nattawut Saikua, meanwhile, said it’s good that there are new faces showing up and offering themselves as choices for the people. However, setting up a political party required several more processes, which were not as easy as first thought.

As some had expressed their clear stance of supporting an outsider PM, those favouring democracy should not hesitate to show their stance, as in the near future it would be a battle between these two schools of thought.

At the moment, it was too early for red-shirts leader to express their political views, but basically any parties or groups supporting democracy, including Pheu Thai, would win their support, he said.

The NLA is set to revisit the amendment of the Senate bill and the MP election bill written by the joint law review committee, after differences were raised following the NLA’s approval of the two bills in late January.

Pornpetch said he projected that the two amended bills would sail through the NLA again, but pointed out that the constitutionality of the Senate bill would have to be considered.

The point was raised by the Constitution Drafting Commission chief, Meechai Ruchupan, that the proposed selection of senators from organisations would be unconstitutional, as the charter states that senators should be independent individuals, selecting one another from determined groups.

Even if that were the case, Pornpetch said, it would not affect the road map as this consideration could be settled within the timeframe given.

THAILAND’S TOP court yesterday issued an arrest warrant for fugitive former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra relating to policy executed by his government that was deemed to benefit his family business.

The Supreme Court’s Criminal Division for Political Office Holders started its trial in the case under a new law on criminal procedures relating to cases against politicians. The new law allows trials in absentia against politicians that have been suspended because the defendants have fled the country.

Thaksin was sued by public prosecutors in 2008 on charges of malfeasance, dereliction of duty and violating the anti-corruption law. The case stemmed from his government’s decision to allow companies with telecoms concessions to pay excise tax instead of concession fees, which caused lost revenue of Bt66 billion to the relevant state agencies.

The Shinawatra family’s business at that time, Shin Corporation, was deemed to be one of the telecoms firms benefiting from the policy.

Thaksin, 69, fled the country the same year and has since lived in self-imposed exile overseas. Under the old law, the legal cases against him were suspended pending his arrest but under the new law passed last year, the court is empowered to try cases in the absence of fugitive politicians three months after an arrest warrant is issued following their escape.

Under the new law, the defendants have the right to appoint lawyers to act on their behalf and they can get involved in defending themselves at any time during the trial.

However, neither Thaksin nor his lawyer was present at the court yesterday and he did not appoint anyone to act on his behalf, so only the prosecution was present in court.

Copies of the arrest warrant and the indictment had been posted at Thaksin’s house in the Charoen Sanitwong area of Bangkok, notifying him of the start of the trial yesterday.

The court issued an arrest warrant for Thaksin after no representatives from the defence appeared in court yesterday. The court also assigned public prosecutors to seek Thaksin’s arrest and to give monthly updates to the court on their progress.

The court concluded the hearing by instructing both sides to return on July 10 to examine the evidence and list of witnesses.

There are also three other cases against Thaksin that are being reviewed in his absence due to the new law. They involve alleged irregularities regarding a loan from the state-run Krungthai Bank to a property firm, a loan from the state-run Export-Import Bank to Myanmar and a Thaksin government project to offer state lottery bets similar to those of underground lottery schemes.

In their lawsuit filed against Thaksin, public prosecutors also accused him of acting in conflict of interest while serving as prime minister between 2001 and 2006, in addition to malfeasance and negligence.

The lawsuit noted Thaksin’s government exempted his satellite business from paying excise tax even though it was part of the telecoms sector. The exemption also benefited his family’s Shin Corp.

“Please keep an eye on the election because we don’t want anyone to have problems. We are all in the Asean region,” Prayut told the Cabinet before their weekly meeting.

General Wanlop Raksanor, secretary-general of the National Security Council, explained that monitoring was essential since the election could result in a change in the make-up of the ruling government and therefore changes in Cambodia’s national policy.

“When neighboring countries hold elections, we have to see whether they have effects on our country and whether their elections are organised properly,” he said.

The general election will be held after the PM Hun Sen-led Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) gained a landslide victory in the country’s senate elections last month.

The massive win would most likely ensure a stronger position in the National Assembly for the CPP – which has already won four consecutive elections – following July’s national poll.

Meanwhile, Chaiyan Chaiyaporn, a political scientist at Chulalongkorn University, said groups’ interest in joining politics stemmed from the belief that the new Constitution would give them an opportunity and enable free and fair elections.

The comments came after the pro-democracy camp led by the young business tycoon Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit and a pro-junta group led by Suthep Thaugsuban signalled they would enter the political arena to advocate their different agendas.

Chaiyan said the phenomenon was similar to events in 1992, when political parties were formed to support a military-influenced government. But this did not mean the ruling National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) held all of the advantages, he said.

Nikorn, formerly a member of the National Reform Steering Assembly, said the ongoing pre-registration of prospective new political parties was one of the most interesting moments in politics, bringing significant changes with new potential parties from the pro-democracy and anti-Shinawatra camps.

However, politics would remain in a transition period with limitations on political actors after the election, he added.

“The political groups of the younger generation who have dreams and desires for change will face impediments because of the national strategy and the reforms supervised by the [junta-appointed] senators,” he said.

It would not be easy to formulate new policies, he added.

For existing parties, Nikorn said there were fewer issues because they did not have to gather members or raise funds, he said. However, it was impossible to predict future politics, he said.

Democrat politician Thavorn Seniam said the large number of groups contesting the election showed that people were becoming more politically active. But only time would tell how much the new parties could actually achieve, said Thavorn, who is also a former leader of the People’s Democratic Reform Committee (PDRC).

Answering the concern that smaller parties could be disadvantaged by the election laws, Thavorn said it was too late to make changes and there was no point to focus on it.

Parties just had to follow the law, he said. The former MP said he welcomed everyone and hoped they would help push reforms that PDRC protesters had demanded.

Meanwhile, Suthep Thaugsuban, also a former leader of the defunct PDRC, distanced himself from directly participating in politics without ruling out the possibility he would join a political party as a member if invited.

Also a former Democrat Party politician, Suthep said yesterday he would not take any political positions nor sit on the executive board of any political party.

There would not be a PDRC party, he said, as that movement’s mission ended with its last protest in 2014. Other people had the right to form a new party, he said, but they could not claim to be the PDRC.

“After we’re done, we return to what we were,” Suthep said. “People go back to their jobs. Politicians go back to their parties. Those from Democrat Party go back to the party.”