BANGKOK, March 14 (Xinhua) -- Fifty-four Thai MPs earlier attached to the now-defunct Future Forward Partyon on Saturday joined the Move Forward Party and picked Pita Limjaroenrat as party leader.
Move Forward Party spokesperson Wiroj Lakkhana-adisorn announced that a total of 54 MPs have freshly applied as members of the party. They unanimously named Pita as party leader and Chaithawat Tulathon as party secretary general, he said.
Those lawmakers have been legally obliged to apply for membership of a political party in order to maintain their MP status, following last month's dissolution of the Future Forward Party where they had earlier belonged.
Nevertheless, nine other MPs, who earlier belonged to the dissolved party, have decided to turn to the Bhumjaithai Party and two others to the Chatthaipattana Party.
Future Forward party leader Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit and party secretary general Piyabutr Saengkanokkul are currently banned for a 10-years time from politics alongside 10 other MPs who concurrently acted as members of the party's executive board as a result of the party dissolution.
The Constitutional Court ruled Thanathorn guilty of breaching the political party law by providing an excessive sum of money to finance last year's electoral campaigns for his party, thus dissolving the 16-month-old party.
Piyabutr and the 10 other MPs immediately lost their MP status due to the party dissolution while Thanathorn had been earlier deprived of his MP status by the Constitutional Court in a separate case involving his illegally holding shares in a media firm.
