New Thai House Speaker could pave way for Move Forward’s Pita Limjaroenrat to become prime minister, but challenges remain: Analysts

“The old guard in Thailand clearly doesn’t want him, and one way or another, they want to get rid of him,” said Prof Hewison.

He said the case is likely to be sent by the election commission to the constitutional court, which has in the past been “very outspoken on dealing with people it sees as opposing the notion of democracy with the king as head of state”, noted Prof Hewison.

That process could take anywhere from a few days to a few months, he added.

Prof Thitinan said Mr Pita faces “all kinds of roadblocks” in his efforts to become prime minister.

“We’ve seen this over the last two decades. We had a sitting prime minister who was disqualified for hosting a cooking show,” he said, referring to former leader Samak Sundaravej’s ousting in 2008.

“We’ve had party dissolutions and disqualifications of top leaders, party leaders, and so on … So Pita is the next one, basically,” said Prof Thitinan, who added that the establishment forces working against Move Forward and Mr Pita are “very powerful”.

ROLE OF THE MILITARY

One of the things that the coalition parties have agreed to is to continue pursuing military reform, something which will worry the military as they undergo a change of leadership in the next few months, said Prof Hewison.