Thanathorn and his co-founders apply for registration of Future Forward Party

Political “young blood” Thanathorn Jungroongruangkit and his teammates announced the launch of their new party, to be named Anakot Mai (Future Forward) party.

The group held an event to introduce the party to the media at a coffee shop in Bang Rak district before travelled to the Election Commission to register the new party.

No political or military officers accepted his invitation to show up to join his “meeting over coffee” and the meeting went on smoothly without any interference from either the police or the military after he was warned that the meeting could be considered as a political assembly which is prohibited by an order of the National Council for Peace and Order. 

The 39-year-old senior executive of Thai Summit Group and a nephew of former transport minister Suriya Jungroongruangkit of the Pheu Thai party, told the media that his party would not support an “outsider” to be the next prime minister and would highlight economic equality, access to capital by all and strong democracy.

It was reported that he had resigned from his posts in the private sector effective as of Thursday (March 15).

Mr Thanathorn who is viewed as a “young blood” politician said one main reason that inspired him to form a new political party was the deep political divide in the past several years which has put people in the country into two opposing camps.

He said that the new party would have a policy to improve the livelihood of the people by making them economically equitable and equally accessible to financial sources, to strengthen democracy which inspires creativity and to phase out monopolies.

He announced that he would be the first to quit if the party strays away from the promises it declared.

Asked about his party-list candidates, Mr Thanathorn said he did not have any of them in mind for the time being, but he reiterated that his party would not support an outsider to be the next prime minister.

Mr Thanathorn and his 26 co-founders who include Thammasat law lecturer Piyabutr saengkanokkul and political academic Chamnan Chanruang went to the Office of the Election Commission to apply for registration of their Future Forward Party.