🇹🇭 Players ready in Thailand's snap election

People's Party takes the lead, a new Pheu Thai nepo rises and Bhumjaithai is hoping for the best

Hello friends!

Just under three weeks now until Thai voters return to the polls, something I’m sure they’re all thrilled about. Today is a look at the three major player parties and what they’re about. We’ll check in over the coming weeks on key issues, the best analysis (a lot of Ken L sharing, no doubt) and reporting.

Elsewhere, on Reformasi this week, we were extremely blessed with an appearance by Isanksarsyah Bakri, a senior adviser to the Acehnese government. Pak Iskandar spoke with us at length about the efforts to rebuild the province following last year’s devastating flooding and landslides. He was very, very blunt and open with us, and it’s so refreshing to hear someone speak so clearly about the problems at hand.

Aceh is no stranger to devastation, of course, and the anger from Banda Aceh that the province is there again is thick. I was personally very grateful to Pak Iskandar for speaking so freely about a string of social media videos which showed young Acehnese people having spats with military personnel and waving flags of the Free Aceh Movement. Two decades on from the end of the war, tensions are easy to spark again, and I feel so lucky to have him discuss that with me.

Please listen here or wherever you get your podcasts:

Now back to Thailand!
Erin Cook

People’s Party’s Natthaphong Ruengpanyawut (centre) takes the lead (c/o Instagram)

People’s Party are the frontrunner. The party is the third iteration of the Future Forward/Move Forward movement after both parties were forcibly dissolved and MPs booted from parliament over painfully transparent moves to rein in their immense success. Last election, Move Forward became the largest party in parliament — surprising even the most optimistic of party true believers — but was ultimately shut out of coalition-building before a Constitutional Court case dissolved the party and leader Pita Limjaroenrat and other MPs were kicked out of parliament.

Onwards and upwards! The movement’s ability to regroup and consistently find impressive candidates who are certainly more than aware of the risks involved is extraordinary. Natthaphong Ruengpanyawut, better known as Teng, will be hoping to take the People’s Party over the line this year. Polling has certainly been in his favour in recent weeks.

A Suan Dusit Poll conducted last week and reported by the Nation shows the party leading in four of the five top policy areas: education, anti-corruption, politics and security (!) and agriculture. Pheu Thai Party remains top on the cost of living. Teng topped the poll for preferred prime minister with 34.34%. Unlike other polls I’ve seen, this one has incumbent Anutin Charnvirakul running third with Pheu Thai’s Yodchanan Wongsawat runner-up on 19.91%.

The party has effectively abandoned the key policy of reforming the country’s horrendous lese-majeste laws. It’s these proposed amendments that have made it an easy target for those wanting to see the movement disappear, though I believe this is largely a practical factor rather than a specific anger at proposed reforms.

Writing for Khaosod, Pravit Rojanaphruk reflects on the People’s Party of today versus its predecessors. I think what he says about shifts in the People’s Party policy towards the military is very interesting. Previous iterations of the movement have been very assertive in pushing back the role of the military in political life, as well as reforming mandatory service for young people. Now, with the conflict with Cambodia lighting up the background, the People’s Party has had to tweak that messaging.

Between the military and the monarchy policies, Pravit wonders if this is a ‘dilution’ of what the movement once stood for. Which is an interesting question! What will the People’s Party — or some other iteration — have to give up to govern, and at that point, who really wins?

Bhumjaithai Party goes all in on the border. Governing Bhumjaithai Party, home to Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul, is unlikely to find itself in the plum position again. Indeed, it only ended up on top after the catastrophic scandal that engulfed Pheu Thai’s prime minister, Paetongtarn Shinawatra. Standing up for Thailand against Cambodia helped Anutin then and he’s hoping it’ll help him again. Resolving the conflict (in Thailand’s favour) and stamping out the region’s scam compounds once and for all are the top agenda items for Bhumjaithai.

I’m an enormous fan of Patpicha Tanakasempipat’s work at Bloomberg, and this paragraph from her really stood out to me as the definitive take on Anutin: ‘By aligning closely with the Thai military, Anutin has leveraged a wartime leader image to double his party’s popularity since border tensions flared up last May. His hardline stance resonates with conservative and rural voters, particularly in the seven northeastern border provinces, helping Bhumjaithai’s campaign to benefit from nationalist fervour in the wake of the fighting.’

Sure, they’re the incumbent party. But they’re not the juicy ones!

Branching out with Pheu Thai. Get the butcher’s paper out, Pheu Thai’s prime minister candidate is a nepo baby that needs a diagram. Yodchanan Wongsawat is the nephew of Pheu Thai founder and former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, the nephew of former Pheu Thai prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra, and, just to mix it up, the son of Somchai Wongsawat, who was briefly prime minister in 2008.

The party is sticking with its populist economic policies but they are falling a bit short on the big post-pandemic promises of 2023. Vulnerable peoples will be granted 3,000 baht ($95.50) cash transfers a month: “The cash will be given to people who lack opportunities, like the disabled or aged who cannot work to earn a living,” he said, as reported by Nikkei Asia. High-tech reforms in the country’s agricultural industries are also in the pipeline if the party clears it, he adds.

The hyper-controversial casino project has been shelved, says Yodchanan. “We have to suspend the project. Since it triggered a conflict and raised strong opposition, we would drop it as we don’t want conflict,” he told Nikkei Asia. Instead, the site will be a hub for wellness and medical tourism: “It’s just a project to gain money from tourists. If one project did not work, we can adjust it.” Very blunt, but not a bad idea, I say.