PUBLISHED : 29 Sep 2023 at 07:05
The Democrat Party is expected to have a new leader by early November at the latest as rumours swirl about members breaking away to form a new party.
The party plans to convene a meeting of acting board executives early next month to put in place guidelines for electing a new leader and new board members, according to Chaichana Detdecho, acting Democrat deputy secretary-general and MP for Nakhon Si Thammarat.
One of the major issues put to the meeting is how to conduct the leadership election in an orderly manner and to achieve a quorum, he said.
It will be the Democrats’ third leadership contest. Two previous rounds were aborted due to a lack of quorum after many members staged a walkout.
The party is fraught with an internal rift between the old-guard members and those on the side of the clique supporting most of the 25 MPs, who advocate for changes to who should run the party and how it should be run.
It was reported that in the previous two meetings, the old guard had estimated that they stood to lose in the leadership contest and decided to leave the room to force a lack of quorum.
On Thursday, Mr Chaichana said he believed the third meeting would be its final in deciding the next party leader. He expected it would be held within the next month or early November at the latest.
As it stands, Narapat Kaewthong, acting deputy party leader, remains the strongest contender for the party leadership, he said.
Mr Chaichana, meanwhile, said he had not heard anything about members leaving the party to form a new one. However, he had read in the news that a group of Democrats was defecting to another party.
All he could say for certain is that the 25 MPs would stay put with the Democrats for now. However, there is no telling if they will be with the party in the next election three years from now.
Mr Chaichana said the rift in the party can be settled with a compromise.
“The Democrat Party can’t resist the wind of change.
“If we stick to the old way of doing things and refuse to budge, we can’t turn over a new leaf. And if we don’t do that, we can’t strive to be competitive,” he said.
The opposing camps in the party can sort out the conflict by talking it out. However, they must not seek to build a wall of heavy demands that stand in the way of fruitful talks.