Thai prime ministerial hopeful Pita Limjaroenrat has been suspended from parliament with his nomination denied, in a fresh blow to his chances of becoming the country's next leader.
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00:00 The leader of Thailand's election-winning Move Forward party has been suspended from
00:05 parliament and had his prime ministerial nomination denied.
00:10 In a dramatic sequence of events on Wednesday, Peter Limjaroenrat was first suspended as
00:16 an MP by the Constitutional Court.
00:19 It was the latest twist in a two-decade battle for power between elected parties and Thailand's
00:24 conservative military establishment.
00:28 Peter won an election in May on a reformist agenda, pledging to amend Thailand's strict
00:33 royal defamation laws.
00:35 His victory over military-backed parties was widely considered to be a clear public rejection
00:41 of nine years of government controlled by generals.
00:45 The court said on Wednesday he was suspended over an allegation he violated election rules
00:50 by holding shares in a media firm.
00:53 Peter denies that, arguing the company had not engaged in mass media operations for years.
00:59 In an interview with Reuters earlier this week, the 42-year-old warned he was unwilling
01:04 to back down.
01:05 "When people ask me, 'How do you feel that you have failed?'
01:11 And I would respond back to them that I won, I formed and I got blocked.
01:16 I didn't fail.
01:19 I won the election, I formed the coalition and I got blocked by the appointed Senate.
01:25 Let us be clear on that.
01:26 So if you think about it in this perspective, I'm honoured to be nominated and I'm grateful
01:31 for how far we have come together to this point.
01:36 It's not a sprint, it's a marathon and I have the stamina to run for a long, long time."
01:44 Despite his optimism, the US-educated liberal leader now has an extremely difficult path
01:50 to the top job, requiring him to overcome fierce resistance from a royalist military
01:56 at odds with his party's anti-establishment ambitions.
02:01 Wednesday's decision came just before Peter was due to contest a second parliamentary
02:06 premiership vote, after losing the first one last week.
02:11 Lawmakers subsequently voided his nomination.
02:15 Although the suspension does not bar Peter from running for prime minister, it is not
02:19 immediately clear whether his eight-party alliance would seek to re-nominate him.
02:24 A caretaker government has run Thailand since March.
02:27 -
02:33 [BLANK_AUDIO]