2023-05-09 08:29:43
“Thailand elections in 2023: Everyone has a chance, but everyone is not sure?”
On May 14th, Thailand is regarding to usher in a general election. Many people think that Thailand is a little closer to returning to democracy, but is this the case? At present, there are regarding 70 political parties in Thailand competing for 500 seats in the House of Representatives (100 of which are generated by party votes). Eight political parties, including the People’s National Power Party (PPRP), one of the ruling coalitions, can influence the prime minister.
Thailand has experienced many difficulties in the past few years, from coups, student demonstrations, military and police corruption, to the inflation of the people in the epidemic era, etc. The people also hope to see changes through elections.
The current Prime Minister Prayut came to power through a military coup in 2014 and amended the constitution in 2017 to favor the military. This allowed Prayut to win the 2019 election without any suspense. Form a ruling coalition with the Thai Pride Party (Bhumjaithai) and the Democratic Party (Democrat), and continue to govern. At that time, the opposition party Future Progress Party (FMP), which was anti-royal and popular with the youth and the middle class, was disbanded by the royalists following the election and was accused of violating election laws. Later, the Future Forward Party was transformed into the Progressive Party (MFP), which made a comeback in this election, and its momentum was not lost to the largest opposition party, the Pheu Thai Party. Prime Minister Prayuth also left the People’s National Power Party he founded because of his disagreement with the current Deputy Prime Minister Prawit Wongsuwon, and joined the United Party at the end of 2022, adding variables to this general election.
It is worth mentioning that this time there is another important person who influenced the election in Thailand——Thaksin Chinnawat, he is also the founder of the Pheu Thai Party. Taksin served as prime minister in 2001. Later, due to corruption scandals and populist policies, he was besieged by the Yellow Shirts initiated by the royalists. He was finally overthrown by the military in a coup in 2006 and fled overseas with large sums of money. For more than ten years in exile, Taksin has always been supported by many Thai people and controlled Thailand through proxies. For example, his sister Yingla became the prime minister in 2011, and was later arrested by the military in 2014. Fang overthrew the fate of the government, and it was Prayut who overthrew Yingla. This time, Taksin once once more sent his daughter——Weng Ying (Paethongtarn Shinawatra)It is still uncertain whether he will be able to win the prime minister’s position. What is certain is that Taksim will continue to influence Thai politics.
In the upcoming elections, polls conducted by the National Administration of Thailand (NIDA) show that the support of the two major opposition parties is higher than that of the current ruling coalition: the Pheu Thai Party and the Kadima Party are 35% and 21%, respectively, both The United Party, to which Prime Minister Prayuth belongs, has only 10% support.The support for the prime minister candidate, from high to low, is as follows: Pheu Pheu Thai Party, Taksin’s daughter Weng Ying is the highest, with nearly 36% support, the chairman of the Progressive Party, and a Thai businessman皮塔（Pita Limjaroenrat）20%, and the current Prime Minister Prayuth is 13%.
Other polls have obvious differences due to agency effects, watermelon effects, or different sampling methods. Some polls show that the Kadima Party is closely following the Pheu Thai Party, and the two opposition parties have a combined support of 70%. Seats, but whatever. Every poll shows that the opposition Pheu Thai Party is still expected to continue to be the major party in the National Assembly, with 131/500 seats in the House of Representatives, followed by the ruling People’s National Power Party with 122/500.
From this point of view, Weng Ying, Peeta and Prayut form the triangular governor in this general election, and Weng Ying has a stable lead. So is Weng Ying, who just gave birth to a baby on May 1, ready to be elected to welcome the prime minister following the baby is born?
The answer is obviously no. The reason is the unfair constitution and elections, which have been fully revealed in the 2019 Thai general election. According to the constitution amended by the military government in 2017 to prevent Taksin’s faction from regaining power, the Prime Minister is jointly elected by 250 senators and 500 members of the House of Representatives, and the 250 senators are all held by royalist forces. To Weng Ying. Therefore, if Weng Ying is to be successfully elected as the prime minister, he must win 376 members of the House of Representatives, that is, the support in the House of Representatives must exceed 75%. At present, no political party in Thailand seems to have such strength. Even the current ruling People’s National Power Party has lost half of the seats because of Prayuth’s jump to the United Party.
In other words, anyone who wants to become the prime minister still has to rely on the cooperation between political parties, that is, to form a coalition government. The problem is how to form it and who will finally take the big position.
▌Phaeu Thai Party and Kadima Party: Can the opposition liberals form an alliance?
According to the attributes of Thailand’s political parties, they can be roughly divided into liberals and conservatives. The liberals think that the Thai Party and the Progressive Party are the main parties. These two parties have high support. Is it possible to form an alliance? At present, it seems that the possibility is extremely low, because the only similarity between the two parties is to remove Prayuth (not the Prayuth regime, we will talk regarding this later). In addition, due to the partial overlapping of the votes of the two parties, it is red eyed to attack the liberals in metropolitan areas such as Bangkok.
Looking further, although Pita, the chairman of the Progressive Party, has tried his best to downplay it, the Progressive Party is still the most anti-royal party in Thailand. It has long been targeted by the military. This made the Pheu Thai Party decide to keep a distance from the Kadima Party. The radicals of the Kadima Party are also dissatisfied with the Pheu Thai Party. They believe that the Pheu Thai Party did not promote democracy during Yingla’s administration (Yingla also belongs to Taksin’s faction and is Taksin’s younger sister). Now they still want to fight with the military. Dealing with each other and even forming a cabinet is completely different from the Kadima Party’s “anti-military interference in politics” philosophy.
This is because there are rumors that Thaksin, the spiritual leader of the Pheu Thai Party, has reconciled with Prawit, the prime minister candidate of the People’s National Power Party and the current deputy prime minister. It is not ruled out that they will form a cabinet together. The statement that Taksim is going home” made the Kadima Party very disgusted – because Prawit and Prayut were all in the same rank, they were both coup masters, and they were repeatedly criticized for wearing famous watches. It is basically a symbol of authority in the old era.
When it comes to forming a cabinet for the reconciliation between the Pheu Thai Party and the People’s National Power Party, it is also difficult to implement in actual operation. The People’s National Power Party is currently far behind in the polls and can only be supported by senators from the military. Although the two-party cooperation can produce an absolute majority coalition, it is estimated that both parties may hold more than 200 votes, but Prawit and his long-term ally Prayuth have turned their faces in order to compete for the prime minister, and it is even more impossible to succumb to the fact that they are almost old enough to be him. Weng Ying under the granddaughter.
In addition, such rumors are full of political calculations, which is not conducive to grabbing young votes for the Pheu Thai Party. Although Weng Ying did not express his position on this, another candidate for the prime minister of the Pheu Thai Party (Thai law stipulates that a party can nominate up to three prime minister candidates, which can be used as backups) has clearly stated that the Pheu Thai Party’s consistent position is to form independently The government will not cooperate with the People’s National Power Party or the United Party to crack rumors.
▌Unity Party and People’s National Power Party: The “reconciliation strategy” and alliance willingness of the ruling conservatives?
In terms of conservatives, Prime Minister Prayuth Prayuth, who has been in power for more than 8 years, has the highest hatred value for the whole of Thailand, but he is still the most powerful leader. Prayuth only joined the United Party at the end of 2022. Both are at the most conservative end of the spectrum.real estate tycoonSretha ThavisinNow one of the candidates for the prime minister of the Pheu Thai Party, Prayut sarcastically said that the country is not a business, implying that businessmen will turn the country’s economy into a family business.
Since the newly registered United Party is running for election for the first time in 2021, it is still uncertain how many members of the House of Representatives it will win. As for how many senators will continue to support Prayuth, it is hard to say. We will have to wait until the end of the election to make a comparison clear movement. Prayut’s current strategy is to win votes from conservatives such as the People’s National Power Party, and then lure the conservative Thai Pride Party and the liberal Democratic Party to join him, and return to the prime minister’s throne once more.
It should be noted that the Constitutional Court of Thailand has announced in 2022 that before the implementation of the new constitution, Prayuth’s term as prime minister will not be counted within the specified number of years, which is tantamount to whitewashing Prayuth and giving him a chance to win a third term. Re-elected Prime Minister can reach 2025. Therefore, one of the slogans of Prayut’s candidacy is: give him time to complete the unfinished business, and arouse the rally of royalist forces who miss the rule of the military system.
But for the liberal Pheu Thai Party and the Kadima Party, it is tantamount to allowing Thailand to return to the military government overnight. Some people think that following Prayut takes power once more, he will not rule out the possibility of extending his term by amending the constitution, and the United Party has also stated that “The monarchy is the backbone of Thailand and will never change. If you don’t like this situation, you can leave Thailand.” Therefore, if the Fine Gael Party can take power, it will take tough measures to deal with those who oppose the monarchy, which is tantamount to the restoration of authority.
On the other hand, the result of the last general election combined with the new constituency division is more favorable to the People’s National Power Party. In order to distinguish it from Prayut, Prawit said that the party will take a middle line that is different from the “traditional liberal-conservative duel”. Now both conservatives and liberals want to seek overall victory and annihilate each other But he believes that this will hinder Thailand’s development, so he emphasized that he and the People’s National Power Party will adopt a reconciliation strategy.
In fact, apart from being photographed by the media wearing various famous watches to attend public occasions, Prawit has always been a low-key kingmaker. The 77-year-old old man has friendship with most important Thai politicians. Even if he quits the military operation, he still has a large military network. Prayuth, who is regarded as a disciple of Prawit, would have been difficult to become the prime minister if he did not have the care of his predecessors. .
Prawit chose to soften his posture, hoping to attract people who prefer the stable status quo. These people are impatient with Thailand’s long-term bipolarity. , they will lean over. In addition, Prawit also said that he would wait for the election results before deciding how to form a cabinet, while the Thai Pride Party has expressed its willingness to form an alliance.
Prawit’s election this time is up for grabs. Apart from the Kadima Party, all forces can cooperate, even including Prayut who left. For Prawit’s reconciliation theory, the Kadima Party vigorously refuted it, calling on voters not to forget that Prawit is the root cause of military interference in politics, emphasizing that if the People’s National Power Party really wants to end the continuous conflict, it must first agree to amend the constitution to get rid of the Senate’s electable prime minister The chaos, and return to the Thai people a real democratically elected prime minister.
In general, this general election can be said to be “everyone has a chance, everyone is not sure”, and the election situation is extremely tense and chaotic. The Pheu Thai Party, the People’s National Power Party, and even the United Party are waiting for the voters’ final choice before proceeding with the next step of arrangement and exchange. Those who are familiar with Thai politics should know that Thailand is always full of surprises. Even if the election is over, the dust will not be settled, and there may be a reorganization of political parties.
It is worth mentioning that following the last general election, the predecessor of the Progressive Party, the Future Forward Party, was ordered to disband by the Constitutional Court on the grounds that it violated the electoral law.Thanathorn JuangroongruangkitHe and others were sentenced to deprivation of public rights for several years. The real main reason for the disbandment of the Future Forward Party was that they wanted to challenge the authority of the royal family, which angered the deep state elites of the royalist forces, including the army, financial groups and professional bureaucrats.
This means that in Thailand, not only the courts are run by the government, but the entire country is run by the royal family. The Progressive Party inherited the thinking of its predecessors and advocated the reform of the so-called royal defamation law (lese majeste law). If the election is too good this time, I am afraid that it will be disbanded following the fall. As a result, Thailand’s Jueqing, who opposes imperial power, has no choice but to be forced to take to the streets, and Thailand may fall into a new political cycle.
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