Future Forward is confident its candidates would win in some constituencies, dismissing speculation it would get only party-list votes.
Secretary-general Piyabutr Saengkanokkul said on Saturday he did not believe that would be the case.
“We don’t view ours constituency MP candidates as foot soldiers who exist only to collect votes for our party-list MP candidates. They are all our ideology fighters. Based on my experience from visiting people in the provinces recently, we believe we’ll win in some constituencies. People want change and we don’t strive to only win the election so that someone can take pictures and stop there. We will continue our political missions even after the election,” he told Thai media.
The new progressive party started accepting applications for constituency and party-list MP candidates at its office in Bangkok on Saturday after applications have been filed online at its website since Oct 18. The application will be accepted until Nov 18.
All applicants will first be screened for qualifications, backgrounds and political orientation before they are put to primary votes by party members.
The winner and first runner-up will then be picked by party members for each constituency. After that, party executives will endorse the winner. They may pick the runner-up in each constituency instead of the winner, but only when they have a very good reason to do so, he explained.
The party will have all 350 candidates ready by the end of this year.
Several people reportedly showed up on Saturday to apply to run in the general election under the Future Forward banner. Most of them are people who have never entered politics.
Rangsiman Rome, a post-graduate student who led several anti-coup and pro-election protests over the past four years, also came but only to apply as a party member.
“It was hard to choose which party I should apply [to be a member]. But when I heard Gen Apirat [Kongsompong, army chief], I decided I had to do something,” he said.
He was referring to the army chief’s comment that he could not guarantee whether there would not be another coup.
Nattapat Akahart, a brother of Kamonkate Akahart, a volunteer nurse who was shot dead in a temple during the red-shirt rally in Pathumwan district in 2010, also came to apply as an MP candidate.
“This party aims to change the country and allows the new generation to drive that change,” he said.
