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- Mano Laohavanich (monastic name Mettanando Bhikkhu) is a Thai politician, former professor of Buddhism at Thammasat University, and former Buddhist monk. He is most famous for his public statements against Wat Phra Dhammakaya, the largest Buddhist temple in Thailand. Laohavanich was born in 1956 and attended several competitive schools in Thailand in his childhood. After graduating from Chulalongkorn University he ordained as a Buddhist monk at Wat Paknam Bhasicharoen in 1982. While still a monk, Laohavanich studied abroad and earned degrees from Oxford, Harvard and Hamburg University. He later returned to Thailand and stayed at Wat Phra Dhammakaya for two years before leaving in 1994, with Laohavanich and Wat Phra Dhammakaya giving highly conflicting accounts about his time there. Afterwards Laohavanich published various Buddhist scholarly works while moving around different temples in Bangkok. Laohavanich's theories were often considered unorthodox and the cause of major controversy in Thailand, leading to Laohavanich leaving the monkhood in 2007. He then became a professor at Thammasat University. Following the 2014 coup d'etat, Thailand's newly established military junta appointed Laohavanich to its National Reform Council, a committee the ruling junta described as preparing Thailand for return to democracy. After his appointment Laohavanich appeared in the Thai media extensively, criticizing various groups including Wat Phra Dhammakaya in a manner critics described as 'fake news'. Laohavanich was later also hired as a special consultant by Thailand's Department of Special Investigation during the 2016–17 legal case against the honorary abbot of Wat Phra Dhammakaya, Luang Por Dhammajayo. Following his work on the military junta's National Reform Council, Laohavanich began a political campaign as secretary-general of the Prachachon Patiroob (Reform People Party), a pro-junta political party that advocated military dictator Prayut Chan-O-Cha remaining in power after the 2019 Thai general election. (en)
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