Thailand: Reformist leader Pita overcomes first court hurdle

Thailand's reformist political champion will be re-instated as an MP after winning a trial his supporters say was aimed at ending his political career.

The Harvard-educated Pita Limjaroenrat and his Move Forward party won the most votes in a huge election win last year.

But he failed to take charge after being blocked by the unelected Senate.

The charismatic young leader was seen as a threat to the establishment for promising to reform harsh royal insult laws and to tackle military influence.

While negotiating to form a coalition government after his election victory, two court cases were lodged against him. His supporters saw this as part of a wider campaign by conservative political forces to oust him from politics and discredit his party's ideas.

On Wednesday he was acquitted in the first case against him, but he faces a potentially more serious legal challenge next week.

The Constitutional Court will rule again, this time on whether his plan to reform Thailand's harsh lese majeste law amounted to an attempt to "overthrow the democratic regime of government with the king as the head of state".

A verdict finding that Move Forward acted unconstitutionally in this way could lead to it being dissolved, and its leadership being banned from politics.

In 2019 the court dissolved Move Forward's previous incarnation Future Forward, after it too had done better than expected in an election. That verdict sparked off months of street protests and unprecedented public criticism of the monarchy.

On Wednesday Pita's supporters cheered outside the Constitutional Court when they heard he had won his case, chanting "PM Pita".

"It was Pita himself who told us that we have to live with hope," Luksikarn Tangchotithanavid, 40, told the BBC.

"Our