Thai prime minister gets royal approval to dissolve Parliament and hold elections early next year

BANGKOK (AP) – Thailand’s Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul received royal permission Friday to dissolve Parliament, setting up general elections early next year.

The election for the House of Representatives would be held 45 to 60 days after the Royal Decree, a period while Anutin will head a caretaker government with limited powers and cannot approve a new budget.

Anutin posted on his Facebook late Thursday that “I’d like to return power to the people.”

The move comes at a tricky political moment, as Thailand is engaged in large-scale combat with Cambodia over long-disputed border claims. About two dozen people were reported killed in the fighting this week, while hundreds of thousands have been displaced on both sides.

Anutin has been prime minister for just three months, succeeding Paetongtarn Shinawatra, who served only a year in office.

Anutin won the September vote in Parliament with support from the main opposition People’s Party in exchange for a promise to dissolve Parliament within four months and organize a referendum on the drafting of a new constitution by an elected constituent assembly.

The issue of constitutional change appeared to trigger the dissolution, after the People’s Party threatened to call a non-confidence vote Thursday after Anutin’s Bhumjathai voted to retain one third of Senate votes in order to amend the constitution.

Anutin served in Paetongtarn’s Cabinet but resigned from his positions and withdrew his party from her coalition government in the wake of a political scandal related to border tensions with Cambodia.

Paetongtarn, daughter of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, was dismissed from office after being found guilty of ethics violations over a politically compromising phone call with Cambodia’s Senate President Hun Sen ahead of July’s armed conflict.

The People’s Party said it would remain part of the opposition, leaving the new government potentially a minority one. The party, which runs on progressive platforms, has long sought changes to the constitution, imposed during a military government, saying they want to make it more democratic.