Is a Coup Coming Soon in Thailand?

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Thailand is, notoriously, the only middle-income or high-middle income country that continues to have regular coups. (Brazil defeated a coup plot in 2022 but has not had successful coups since the end of the military dictatorship in 1985.) Thailand has had twenty two coup attempts since the end of the absolute monarchy in the 1930s, and thirteen of those were successful.

The Thai military, throughout the decades and up to now, has had enormous influence over all sectors of society—much more than in most other developing democracies. Its military leaders see the army, along with the king, as the central forces in Thailand, the bulwarks against political chaos—which can include simply normal rough parliamentary tactics, legitimate popular protest, and other actions that really are the norm of civilian democracy. The military has launched coups so many times that it has developed what many experts as a “coup culture” in which the more coups happen, the more they create an idea in the military, passed down to younger officers, in which coups are acceptable means of handling virtually any major challenges in the country.

Many signs, unfortunately, now point to another coup looming in the relatively near future. Thai politics, particularly army and royal politics, can be hard to decipher, so any prediction has a degree of uncertainty. But in recent months, the military has, after being fairly quiet (by Thai army standards) following 2023 national elections, aggressively returned to the public arena, taking power away from elected politicians, crossing boundaries to show its dominance, and taking a series of actions that often presage a coup.

The underlying conditions are ripe for a coup. The current king, Vajiralongkorn, while weak in terms of popular affection, is much more openly involved in politics than his father was, and reported to be personally unstable. It is possible to imagine him okaying a coup, as long as the military makes it in his interests, such as by ensuring that the powerful Shinawatra dynasty, which includes the current prime minister, is totally crushed forever. And the military too has tired of the Shinawatra political dynasty and would like them gone from politics and probably Thailand itself after over two decades of the Shinawatras dominating civilian politics and serving as a foil to the military. Since former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, the family’s leader, returned from exile in 2023, he has alienated the military multiple times, including by trying to intervene in Myanmar peace negotiations and in Cambodia-Thailand negotiations over territory in the Gulf of Thailand that both countries want to explore for natural gas.

Following the 2023 election, in which a progressive party, Move Forward, which favored military reform, was particularly popular among young Thais, and was hated by the army, won the most seats but not a majority, another historically populist party dominated by the Shinawatras, Pheu Thai, which had taken the second-most seats, formed a coalition including pro-military parties. These parties even included one headed by a general that had launched a coup in 2014. The military, which had been on the back foot for several years as large street protests demanded reforms to laws about the military and monarchy, felt emboldened again. Move Forward had, the army thought, been put down, at least for a time.

The coalition got enough votes to control parliament, but it left Pheu Thai’s survival as coalition head and the survival of prime minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra, in the hands of pro-military partners. This created a weak government, and one led by a prime minister with no political experience. Meanwhile, foreign actors had mostly lost interest in Thai human rights issues; the Biden administration paid little attention, as has the Trump administration, with one exception (which I will discuss later on).

With those conditions set, which already left the military with great influence over civilian politicians, in recent months the army has sent fairly clear signals that, after years of reformist parties trying to restrain it, it wants to be back in full power. Military leaders have consistently accused Paetongtarn of being weak on national security.

It also has taken a series of clear and dangerous steps. The military has sent signals that it is breaching old boundaries to assert its influence. Though foreign academics are rarely detained in Thailand even when they work on sensitive issues, the military filed lese majeste charges in April against one of the most prominent Thailand experts in the world, U.S. citizen Paul Chambers. He was detained, even though the writing that supposedly broke lese majeste (insulting the monarchy) laws was no different than many of his other works on Thailand. He ultimately fled back to the U.S., but the army’s move against him angered the White House and severely damaged U.S.-Thai trade talks, showing the military’s desires outweighed anything civilian leaders were trying to accomplish.

From there, the military keep breaking boundaries and stepping up pressure on the government that could lead to a coup. Though the army rarely if ever talks about another coup being possible, to create the idea that the latest coup is the last ever, Deputy Prime Minister and Defense Minister Phumtham Wechayachai explicitly said in May that another coup could not be ruled out. “No one can firmly certify that there will be no more coups,” he said.

Then, on May 28, there was a skirmish between Thai and Cambodian forces in a border regions; the fight killed one Cambodian. The Thai military immediately tried to escalate, though it claims Cambodia shot first. It also, since May, has been giving confusing briefings to the civilian government, making Paetongtarn look weak. In recent weeks both Cambodia and Thailand has increased the pressure in the border conflict.

As I noted in a prior post: "Both countries increased their troop presence in the area of the skirmish. Cambodia has banned petroleum exports to Thailand. The Thai army has suggested cutting internet service to Cambodia, and Cambodia has cut internet links into Thailand."

The escalation strategies on the Thai side, however, which have included closing the Thai border to Cambodian visitors, possibly banning Thai exports to Cambodia, and discussing a larger operation in the border area disputed with Cambodia, have worked in several ways to give the Thai army even more power and control of politics.

They have worked in stoking general nationalist sentiment in Thailand, in providing a reason to paint any politicians with qualms about military activity as traitors, in boosting national support for the army, and in further damaging Paetongtarn’s image. In recent days, protests have broken out in Bangkok calling for the prime minister to step down or be ousted. She certainly did not help with a leaked phone call to Cambodia’s Hun Sen in which she disparaged a top Thai army leader and seemed too willing to compromise with Cambodia over the border clash.

Add in another element that suggests a coup is coming. As Rath Pichanvorlak notes in the Diplomat, Thailand’s numerous extreme pro-military/monarchy ultranationalist groups, which often hold large and sometimes violent rallies in the weeks or months before a coup, are out in force again now, leading most of the protests in Bangkok. As Rath further notes, these ultranationalist protest groups are, as before prior coups, “are fueling the conflict and questioning the government’s patriotism and legitimacy, potentially paving the way for another military coup.” 

Both Rath and I, and several other Thai military experts, further see the past few months of military actions as similar to how the army operated before the coups in 2014 and 2006. As Rath notes, "Thailand’s 2006 and 2014 coups both followed a similar trajectory involving a Shinawatra-led government, a border dispute with Cambodia, and the use of nationalist fervor to justify military intervention … In the case of both coups, the military and conservative elites portrayed Thaksin-aligned (Thaksin surely has a degree of control over the prime minister, his daughter) democratic governments as threats to national unity and sovereignty, using the Cambodia issue as a powerful symbol of disloyalty and justification for intervention."

Now, once again, the military is openly suggesting that the civilian government is weak, and the prime minister so inexperienced that civilian leaders are unable to handle this crisis.

Already, pro-military actors in parliament are also pushing to get rid of the prime minister and possibly pave the way for a coup. Indeed, one of Paetongtarn’s former coalition partners in government, the pro-military Bhumjaithai Party, has quit her coalition and has called a no-confidence vote in her government, to be held in parliament this week, most likely. And she also faces a possible trial at the Constitutional Court, which will decide on a petition about her tomorrow. Should either the no-confidence vote or the Constitutional Court case succeed, it would topple her government and provide the room for the army to claim that domestic politics are in a shambles and the army can restore order to prevent total political destabilization.

Paetongtarn and her family seem determined that they will win the no-confidence vote, by a reshuffle that still keeps them in control of parliament. But her odds as not as good as they were even two days ago, when I assessed them. Bhumjaithai’s leader is very ambitious and it is seriously possible that Bhumjaithai will put together a coalition, yet one that might not be stable at all.

Would a coup happen this week? I doubt it. As AFP noted, a military source said that a tanks in the streets coup is not necessary now, given the potential to stage a "silent coup" through the courts or other bodies such as the election commission.

This kind of “silent coup” will work for a period of time, But, in my opinion, the appeal of a “silent coup” diminishes the longer Bangkok remains wracked by protests, the Shinawatras still retain power, and civilian politics becomes increasingly destabilized. It is very possible that the ultranationalist protests in Bangkok are met with counterprotests and real violence, which has happened multiple times before.

What’s more, a severe coup – more than a “silent coup” would allow the military to probably get rid of the Shinawatras forever, boost the power of young and ultranationalist groups that are growing in Thailand, totally destroy the reformist movement that has remained a potent force questioning the power of the military and the laws around the monarch, and give the army even more control of the economy. This type of coup is not popular among the majority of Thais, but today, does that matter?

To be sure, in prior coups in the twenty first century, the military usually followed a certain playbook that has not been exactly followed now. They have at times used the pliant judiciary to remove politicians and parties As Greg Raymond of Australian National University, one of the world’s leading Thailand scholars, wrote to me in a recent exchange on X between us, the military may not want to take power because “a coup requires [afterward] an interim const[itution], drafting a new const[itution] and finally an election.” The election then takes place under rules created by a constitution that protects the military and the palace and favors pro-military parties. As another Thailand scholar noted to me, in coups in 2006 and 2014, the military did not want to hold power openly for very long—although it did actually hold power for four years after the 2014 coup, a decent stretch of time.

So, don’t all these signals not matter because the military does not want, again, to have an interim constitution, develop a new one, and then hold an election? As I noted on X to Dr. Raymond, why does the Thai army have to take all these steps today? I wrote: “It’s a different world today, one where human rights are unfortunately an afterthought. … This is a different world, autocrats are more stable than in the past and coup governments are proving durable and also more repressive. It’s a new world—so why do they have to follow prior Thai coup rules?”