By Panu Wongcha-um
BANGKOK (Reuters) -Thailand’s influential former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatraa powerful backer of the largest party in the ruling coalition, avoided pre-trial detention for allegedly insulting the monarchy after a criminal court released him on bail on Tuesday.
Separately, the Constitutional Court set July 3 and 10 respectively as the next hearing dates for two cases involving the opposition party Move Forward and the incumbent prime minister. Srettha Thavisin.
Srettha, a political novice who took office last year, risks dismissal over a cabinet appointment.
The Move Forward party, which won hard-fought elections last year but failed to form a government, could be dissolved over its campaign to change the Royal Insults Act.
Thaksin, Srettha and Move Forward deny any wrongdoing.
The Constitutional Court also ruled that an ongoing selection process for a new upper house, which started earlier this month, is lawful, leaving room for 200 new lawmakers to take over from a military-appointed Senate later this year.
The lawsuits, which threaten to deepen a decades-old rift between the conservative-royalist establishment and its opponents such as the populist ruling Pheu Thai party and the Move Forward party, have raised the specter of political instability and troubled markets.
Thailand’s main stock index, which fell to its lowest level since November 2020 on Monday, rose more than 1% on Tuesday morning before paring gains.
(Reporting by Panu Wongcha-um, Panarat Thepgumpanat, Chayut Setboonsarng and Orathai Sriring; Writing by Devjyot Ghoshal; Editing by John Mair and Ed Davies)
