Waiting for Thailand’s Next Election

While U.S. President Donald Trump’s summit meeting with Thai Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha in early October was officially centered around broader security and economic issues, the headlines back in Thailand predictably focused on what Prayut’s first-ever White House visit since the military junta seized power in a coup in May 2014 might mean for the Southeast Asian state’s repeatedly delayed transition back to democratic governance.

Since the junta took the helm in May 2014, the much-anticipated elections have been pushed back several times – first into 2016, then 2017, and now out to 2018 and even 2019. These delays reflect a wider trend of fierce political contestation in Thailand over the past decade, which has occurred amid an ongoing struggle between the military-backed royalist elite and parties linked to former controversial Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. Thaksin-linked parties have won each of the country’s last three elections – in 2001, 2007, and 2011 – only to be ousted by military coups, political protests, and other legal maneuvers. The May 2014 coup deposing Thaksin’s sister Yingluck marked the latest example.

That struggle is still very much playing out, leaving Thailand’s political future – including its full transition back to democratic rule – uncertain. Though a 20-month process called the “6-4-6-4 road map to democracy” had been unveiled early last year, the death of long-revered King Bhumibol Adulyadej in October 2016 was said to have thrown a spanner in the works.

The royal transition – a one-year official period of mourning for the late king and transition period for his son and successor, Maha Vajiralongkorn – has further delayed the elusive election into 2018 or 2019, if it occurs at all.

So when the U.S.-Thailand joint statement issued following Prayut’s meeting with Trump – officially focused on building a “stronger alliance for common security and closer economic partnership for common prosperity” – contained a short paragraph noting that Trump welcomed Thailand’s commitment to its roadmap to democracy, which would “lead to free and fair elections in 2018,” observers immediately took it as a firm commitment for polls to be held next year, with significant implications for Thailand’s domestic political trajectory.

In a sign of the scrutiny on the junta and its election date announcements, confusion temporarily emerged as to whether Prayut and other Thai officials had meant that Thailand’s election itself would be held next year or whether the date of the election would simply be announced next year and polls themselves would take place in 2019. After the confusion played out during Prayut’s engagements, including at a dinner convened with the U.S. business community, he subsequently confirmed to reporters back in Bangkok that the election would be held in November 2018, the most precise date that the junta has given thus far.

Whether or not this will be followed through on, however, remains unclear. To be sure, the specificity of the date given by Prayut is somewhat encouraging. And given the fact that by the end of next year, the junta would have bypassed even an elected government’s four-year term in power – a point critics have already been pointing out – Prayut and his team are no doubt aware that they will need to show some serious signs of moving toward a democratic transition of some sort.

Yet the junta has also repeatedly shown in recent years that it is willing to go back on its word if Thailand’s domestic political dynamics change, irrespective of the heat it takes both at home and abroad. Should there be any hiccups in how things are playing out as the junta sees it – whether in terms of the political roadmap itself or other broader developments – one should expect that the election date may once again be pushed back. The fact that there are still several procedural steps to complete before polls are held, including the completion of organic laws, approval by parliament, and months of preparations, also means there are no shortage of opportunities for hurdles to be encountered or placed.

It is also worth emphasizing that for all the focus on when an election is held, that is only part of the story here. Equally important is how any election will be held. As the Thai newspaper The Nation noted in a hard-hitting editorial on October 12, it is still not clear whether the junta will lift the necessary restrictions on free speech that would be required for any election to pass the free and fair test. If not, the newspaper warned, “this state of affairs would likely fail the international benchmark for a free and fair election.”

Then there is the issue of whether any election will really matter or not. Amid the clamor for elections, the junta has already begun to take steps that close observers see as tinkering with the rules of the game to prevent any Thaksin-linked parties from decisively winning in upcoming polls. The military will also retain sufficient power to intervene later on. With some of the provisions in the new constitution unveiled by the junta as well as a 20-year national strategy being crafted to guide future elected administrations, naysayers have already begun declaring that even an election at this point would not be that meaningful. It bears repeating that the problem in Thailand over the past decade-and-a-half has not been the holding of elections, but the unwillingness of various groups to accept democratic outcomes that are not in their favor.

As Thailand moves closer to the next goal post of November 2018, observers will be watching carefully to see if there are any further adjustments to this new election deadline. The deeper question, it is worth recalling, will be whether competing political groups can find the right balance between democracy and stability amid the fierce polarization that continues to paralyze Southeast Asia’s second-largest economy.