Thai House votes down anti-coup motion

Thailand's House of Representatives on Thursday voted down the Future Forward Party's (FFP) motion for a committee to study ways to prevent future military coups.

The House rejected the proposal with 242 votes against and 215 MPs supporting it, with two abstentions, reports the Bangkok Post newspaper.

FFP Secretary-General Piyabutr Saengkanokkul had proposed the motion earlier this month.

Before the vote, Piyabutr told the MPs that coups were a reaction to political crises, but were not a right way to solve political conflict.

Coups could not bring about a liberal democracy, they only enabled a group within the military to take over and prolong their stay in power, he added in his unsuccessful bid to garner votes.

The motion was primarily designed to find out ways and means to keep the powerful military from staging a coup and overthrowing an elected government in the face of a future political crisis.

The incumbent government under Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha was formed following a coup.

On May 22, 2014, the Royal Thai Armed Forces, led by Prayut launched the coup, the 12th since the country's first in 1932, against the caretaker government following six months of political crisis in Thailand.

Following this, the caretaker government and the Senate were dissolved, the then Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra was impeached, the Constitution repealed and the creation of a military junta.