Thailand’s General Election: 4 Things to Watch

On May 14, Thai voters will go to the polls to elect their next government, with the country’s political landscape more fractured and complex than it has been in many years. Here are four things to watch out for on election day.

The Ghost at the Feast

Once again, a Thai election will be dominated by the showdown between parties aligned with the conservative political establishment, backed by the power of the military, and the allies of exiled former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

Parties led by or associated with Thaksin have won every election since 2001, buoyed by the massive popular following that the former Thai leader gained in the early 2000s, especially across the rural north and northeast. Threatened by Thaksin’s huge popularity, the military-backed conservative-royalist establishment has taken a number of steps to eliminate his influence from Thai politics.

The military overthrew Thaksin in a coup in 2006, forcing him into self-exile, and then did the same to his sister, Yingluck Shinawatra, in 2014, three years after she was elected. Other Thaksinite governments were removed via political machinations and politically motivated court rulings.

This year, the pro-Thaksin Pheu Thai Party (PTP) seems once again seems poised for victory under the leadership of Thaksin’s 36-year-old daughter, Paetongtarn “Ung Ing” Shinawatra, who is vying to become third member of the family to lead Thailand. With its promises to raise the minimum wage, bolster rural livelihoods, and upgrade the country’s universal healthcare system, the PTP is performing well in the polls, with major opinion surveys conducted in early April showing it as the preferred choice of party. Paetongtarn is also topping many surveys as Thais’ preferred prime minister, well ahead of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha and other conservative rivals.

On the other side of the ravine that runs through the center of the Thai political landscape sits a conservative camp that is unusually divided. In January, Prayut, who led by the 2014 coup, defected from the ruling Palang Pracharath Party (PPRP), which helped put him in the top post in 2019, and joined with newly formed United Thai Nation Party (UTNP). There is little daylight between the parties in terms of ideology, which is focused overwhelmingly on the defense of the status quo. Instead, the rift reflects the personal rivalries between Prayut and PPRP leader Prawit Wongsuwan, who is hoping to follow his old comrade-in-arms in parlaying his military career into a stint as prime minister.

The rifts in the conservative camp have given rise to rumors that the PTP might be willing to join with the PPRP in a national unity government, as a prelude to a possible return for Thaksin after years of self-exile. In recent weeks, Paetongtarn said that her party will not “join hands with those involved in the two previous coups.” But given the complex and fluid nature of the political scene, it would be foolish to rule it out.

Winner Take All?

While the PTP stands a good chance of winning an overall plurality of the vote, and the largest bloc of seats in Parliament, this does not guarantee that it will form the next government, and see either of its two prime ministerial candidates – the other is the real estate mogul Srettha Thavisin – elected to the country’s top office. Indeed, this is more or less what unfolded at the last election in 2019, when the PTP won the largest share of seats in parliament – 136 compared to the PPRP’s 116 – but was unable to form government.

The reason lies in the terms of the 2017 Constitution, which was drafted and passed by the military administration that seized power in 2014, in large part to entrench conservative control to keep pro-Thaksin parties out of power. It created a 250-member Senate, appointed entirely by the military, which after May 14 will join with the 500 members of the newly elected lower house to choose the country’s next prime minister. As per its design, the Senate is very unlikely to support any of PTP’s candidates for prime minister; indeed, some senators have been explicit about the fact that they would never vote for a Shinawatra.

The Senate firewall raises the bar that the PTP – or any opposition party – needs to hurdle if wants to guarantee itself the right to form government, from a simple plurality of 251 seats in the lower house to at least 376 seats. As in 2019, this would appear to be out of the Pheu Thai’s reach; even the party’s own optimistic goal is to win 310 seats. This raises the likelihood of an inconclusive election, and a period of heated post-election negotiations, throwing a spotlight on a number of small parties that might play an important role in forming the next government.

Dark Horses and Kingmakers

If the PTP is able to form the next government, its best bet is probably an alliance with the Move Forward Party (MFP), by some distance Thailand’s most progressive major political party. The MFP, led by the businessman Pita Limjaroenrat, is the de facto successor of the Future Forward Party, which came in third at the last election in 2019, buoyed by its strong support among Thailand’s youth. In fact, the court-ordered dissolution of Future Forward on a bogus technicality in February 2020 was one of the primary catalysts for the wave of youth-led protests that unfolded across Thailand in 2020 and early 2021, before being halted by the advance of COVID-19.

Like the PTP, Move Forward is performing well in the polls; one survey by the daily news organizations Matichon and the Daily News found that Pita was the preferred prime minister of nearly a third of respondents, ahead even of Paetongtarn. If the MFP managed to replicate or exceed Future Forward’s return of 82 seats at the 2019 election, it could go some way to ensuring that the opposition has a strong say in the next government.

An alliance with the MFP does run some risks for the PTP, especially given the former’s pledge to amend the country’s  lese-majeste law, which criminalizes any perceived criticism of the monarchy. The use of lese-majeste has ramped up since late 2021, as the government has sought to quash the youth protest movement, and more than 200 people now face charges of defaming the monarchy. Given the extreme sensitivity of anything relating to the monarchy, and the fact that the conservative establishment will seize on any opportunity to punish the PTP, the party is likely to tread cautiously on this front.

On the conservative side, a possible dark horse looms in the form of the Bhumjaithai Party, which is led by current Health Minister Anutin Charnvirakul. The driving force behind Thailand’s landmark legalization of marijuana last year, the 56-year-old Anutin is hoping the reform will prove a vote winner at the election. Some polls have shown Bhumjaithai as the most popular party in the ruling coalition, and if it is able to improve on its return of 51 seats in 2019, it could, like the MFP, have a strong say in the formation of the next government, especially given the good relationships that Anutin has reportedly established with figures on both sides of Thailand’s political divide.

How Will the Military React?

Looming over everything, however, is the unspoken threat of another legal or military intervention. The Royal Thai Army has carried out 12 coups since the end of the absolute monarchy in 1932, and resorted to force twice to remove the Shinawatras from power in 2006 and 2014. Could it do so again?

In October, RTA Commander-in-Chief General Chalermpol Srisawat denied the possibility of another coup, but such denials have frequently been made prior to past coups, including the most recent, and cannot be taken as definitive. 

In some ways, the 2017 Constitution has been crafted to ensure that another coup is unnecessary, by creating a structural advantage for pro-establishment parties. But in so doing, it has effectively left unaddressed the popular discontent, particularly among rural Thais, that has long underpinned Thaksin’s popularity. Should these electoral forces help catapult the PTP and MFP over the hurdles created by the 2017 Constitution, and permit them to form a government that the conservative establishment views as threatening, it is not inconceivable that it could resort once again resort to the barrel of the gun.

Even short of a coup, there are any number of ways that the establishment could hamstring Thaksin and his allies, including the use of the courts either to invalidate the results on a technicality or to disband opposition parties outright. All told, the possibility that the results can always be disregarded or abrogated imposes an invisible limit on the democratic possibilities of Thai elections. 

With the fundamental rifts in Thai politics unresolved since the beginning of the century, this year’s poll shapes up as no different.