BANGKOK: The speaker of Thailand’s parliament postponed on Tuesday (Jul 25) a vote for the country’s next prime minister by the two houses of the legislature, media reported, as a political deadlock drags on more than two months after a May general election.
The vote was scheduled for Thursday following two unsuccessful attempts by the leader of the election-winning Move Forward Party, Pita Limjaroenrat, to become prime minister because of the opposition of conservatives and nominated lawmakers to his party’s liberal agenda.
“There will be no meeting on the 27th,” house speaker Wan Muhamad Noor Matha told The Reporters news website in an interview. “I will inform later when the next vote will be.”
Voters rejected nearly 10 years of rule by the military and a military-backed government in the May election with Move Forward winning the most seats. Another opponent of military rule, the populist Pheu Thai party, came second.
But under a constitution drafted during military rule, members of a military-appointed Senate also vote for the prime minister and Pita failed to win the necessary majority in a joint sitting of both houses.
Source: CNA
