Thai Voters Look for Stability as People’s Party Implodes

Thailand’s national election did not go the way many polls predicted, at least party list polls, but those polls were capturing party list intentions to vote. Bhumjaithai Party did a great job in the campaign period of picking up support from power brokers in rural areas, and getting commitments to constituency seats, while the People’s Party neglected this aspect and also lost out in the South to the resurgent Democrats, which cut into PP’s totals as well.

The polls also seem to have been off, even on party list intentions. Perhaps that’s because PP lacked a charismatic leader, perhaps it’s because of an upswing of nationalism, perhaps that’s because of increasing polling no response. PP certainly did not have a charismatic leader on the order of their leadership in the 2023 election, and there was infighting among top leaders throughout the campaign.

 Ken Lohatepanont of Coffee Parliament had a great analysis in December of BJT’s gaining of party bosses in the north, particularly, but it was somewhat lost amongst polling showing strong party list support for PP. Yet these bosses delivered a lot of important constituency seats, and PP could not match that.

At the time, he noted: “While it’s far too early to make a forecast of how each party will fare on the February 8th election, signs point to Bhumjaithai being the early frontrunner. Of course, if someone were tracking just the polling, they would think that Bhumjaithai is on track to come in a rather distant second or third place. But Thai elections are never just about the national sentiment. Voters often split their constituency and party list ballots. And so in this post, I want to do a deeper dive into the reason why Bhumjaithai is currently expected to do very well: its deployment of local clans, known in Thai as the baan yai (literally “the big houses”). (See here for a primer on what the baan yai are.) The key thing to note is that in a two-ballot system, the baan yai are more likely to survive regardless of party affiliation. As Napon Jatusripitak and I noted in our 2023 piece: The two-ballot system provides voters with greater flexibility and choice in expressing their preferences, for example, enabling them to choose a candidate from one party based on local considerations, such as the candidate’s track record, or personal ties to their constituency, while simultaneously voting for another party on the party-list ballot that aligns with their broader ideological or policy preferences … According to a NationWeekend analysis, over 65 former MPs have already switched allegiances to Bhumjaithai over the past few weeks.”

He was exactly right about how skillfully BJT got those constituency seats.

Thai voters also have lived with instability for decades as their country has seen its economy stagnate, its regional power ebb, and its talent flee as there has been constant turmoil, primarily between Thaksinite parties and the military and establishment. This has caused enormous harm to Thailand’s economy and strategic power.  The success also of the technocratic Kla Tham party also suggests there is hunger for policy solutions, including on a local level.

And as I’ve written before multiple times, the environment of nationalism created by the conflict with Cambodia, which I think the Thai military likely wanted to keep going, strongly favored BJT because it is a nationalist party.

As I noted in December, “It appears that the 2023 election could, for now, be the high point of the People’s Party’s gains. It remained possible that PP would build on its 2023 electoral success and win even more seats in this upcoming election, but that was before the military/political establishment created conditions that hampered PP—almost surely on purpose—and the party’s leaders also made several poor decisions. (To be fair, I had earlier argued that PP was building on its 2023 gains, but I no longer believe that.) The border war has driven a rise in nationalist sentiment, which will almost surely help Anutin’s Bhumjaithai Party, a pro-military party, perform better than previously expected. PP, meanwhile, has been put in a tough political position by the revival and intensification of the Cambodia-Thailand border conflict. It is struggling to walk a line between seeming pro-Thailand and maintaining its goals of army and monarchy reforms, which are central to holding its base of supporters. The conflict also has helped boost the popularity of the army and has made the kind of moderate but somewhat reform-minded voters who PP need to expand beyond their base wary of going with the progressive party.”

PP could not come up with an effective response in an environment of nationalism. They conceded some of their past critiques of the military and plans for reform, and this might have cost them some of their vote supporters, although we will not know for sure until there is a more detailed analysis of the election, and that will take some time.

But it is not hard to imagine that the fact that PP dropped some of its pushes for reform alienated some of its base supporters, who also are necessary for get out of the vote efforts. There was intense online criticism among some PP supporters of its dropping of some reform promises. Yet it appears their changes wouldn’t have been enough to win over nationalist voters, so moves backward re: the army gained nothing.

The lack of a truly charismatic leader like in the 2023 election did matter too for PP, and there had been intense criticism of their leadership’s poor campaign style before the election. This matters because their party relies heavily on intense motivation and charisma, given the past hurdles they have faced.

It’s also important to remember that PP badly, badly miscalculated last fall, in retrospect, by agreeing to a deal that made Anutin interim prime minister in exchange for certain promises. This elevated Anutin, and as PM, that gave him a stronger position to build out his party. This “grand compromise” was skillfully utilized by Anutin, but it hurt PP badly and showed their lack of political skill. This was a massive mistake by PP in retrospect.

So what happens now? With a solid victory, Anutin and likely the Kla Tham party as a partner have an opportunity to provide stability. While I initially thought a victory by then might trigger unrest, it’s such a comprehensive victory that I think unrest is unlikely, and PP has conceded, and their leaders and supporters seem shellshocked. I do not think instability is likely.

So, Anutin and his partners need to use that stability to reassure investors, rethink the economy going forward, reclaim some of Thailand’s regional leadership role, stop the exodus of talent, try to help nurture Thai unicorns in the tech sector like those that exist in Indonesia, etc. Perhaps they would include Pheu Thai in their coalition, but that seems like it would bring more headaches than Anutin would want. If they can do that, all of Thailand will win.

I do not think, as some outlets have reported, including the New York Times, that this election is some kind of referendum on Thailand’s monarchy. It’s impossible to measure pro or anti-monarchy sentiment in Thailand because of lese majeste laws, but this was not a referendum on the monarchy or the current monarch. As several analysts noted right before the election, there sometimes seemed to be a void of issues even talked about, but this wasn’t a monarchy referendum.  Or, there were many issues that seems overlapping, but it was not a referendum on the monarchy.

And this election and other factors almost surely signal the end of the Shinawatras’ power, as Pavin Chachavalpongpuin and I wrote in the past. Their dynasty was already in deep trouble, but this was probably the final blow.

Finally, the election does call into question whether Gen Z protests in Asia or elsewhere can translate into the ballot box, with elections coming up in Nepal and Bangladesh, two places where Gen Z protestors helped topple governments but are struggling to turn their protest powers into success at the ballot box in upcoming elections.

Here, PP, the party most favored by Gen Z, got eviscerated, as many voters seemed to also look to stability at a time of regional, domestic, and international uncertainty on nearly every front. The fact that the Liberal Democratic Party in Japan, probably the most successful establishment party in modern history (now that the U.K. Conservatives have imploded), won a massive victory also suggests a voter shift to stability, at least for now.