Prachachon Patiroob (Reform People Party) yesterday joined the chorus of support for Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha to become the next prime minister.
Former senator Paiboon Nititawan, leader of Prachachon Patiroob, submits documents to the Election Commission as part of the party formation process. Tawatchai Kemgumnerd
Former senator Paiboon Nititawan, leader of the new party, said Gen Prayut has the party's full support and is the ideal candidate to become Thailand's next prime minister.
He described Gen Prayut as being honest without any proven misconduct, and said that it is totally unfair for anyone to compare Gen Prayut with Malaysia's former prime minister Najib Razak.
Mr Paiboon last month applied to register the Prachachon Patiroob party and yesterday submitted paperwork for the EC to endorse the status of his new political party.
He, along with 27 people listed as would-be executives, submitted the 9,000 pages of documents required for completing the party's registration, a list of 1,441 initial members and 1.4 million baht in funding.
The party expects to recruit 10,000 more members across all the provinces over the next four months.
When the party achieves this goal, it will then begin implementing its plan to form a "civil council for national reform" in every province to serve as a mechanism for monitoring the work of state anti-corruption agencies, said Mr Paiboon.
The party is positioning itself as a reform-based party in opposition to old political parties which were prone to be influenced by power and money, he said.
In its first five years, he said, the party aims to implement three core policies, namely to empower members of the public, push to reform the Sangha administration and reform politics.
The party will never resort to street protests to achieve these goals and will strictly follow the existing legal mechanisms, he said.
Mr Paiboon also said he agrees with an idea to form a coalition government consisting of political parties with a majority vote in parliament, for the sake of political stability.
However, he doesn't believe any coalition should have a name, rather it should just be called a government with a "special" majority voice.
"All parties will have to join hands to complete this transition without repeating the same mistake that occurred before May 22, 2014 [military coup] when the political powers outweighed the power of members of the public and civil servants," he said.