Election of the Weekend II: Thailand

Joining Japan in holding a national election this weekend is the Kingdom of Thailand. All 500 seats in the House of Representatives are up, and Thai voters will be voting on a new constitution, as well. Thanks to a 2021 amendment to the 2017 constitution, the election of the Thai parliament follows the same parallel structure Japan does (indeed, the Japanese model informed their constitutional reforms), but with greater weight to the single member districts and no regions to the PR election. 400 SMD-FPTP seats, 100 seats elected via party list PR, each voter votes twice, once for a local candidate and once for a national list, no artificial floor. Parties must submit a list of prime minister candidates prior to the election, up to three. Only those on the pre-submitted list, representing parties with at least 25 members of the house, can serve as PM.

To set the stage a bit, let’s review how we got here. The Thai election in 2023 produced two leading parties, each with around 25% of the vote and 30% of the seats. In first place with 151 seats and just over 25% was Move Forward, a progressive social democratic party. In second place with just under 25% and 141 seats was the Pheu Thai party, a populist party with some left-populist and some right-populist characteristics, associated with form PM Thaksin Shinawatra and his family. These two parties easily had a majority together, and were the two opposition, pro-democracy/anti-military parties. They set about to negotiate and form a coalition agreement. Alas, it was not to be. Monarchists and Militarists in the upper house rejected the Move Forward led government. They then moved forward with a Pheu Thai party in the lead, which held together for a year, until the Constitutional Court ruled that no Move Forward members could participate in government, due to their advocacy of reforms to the Lèse-majesté law (the law that makes any insult to the King a criminal offense). Good old King Bhumibol was by all accounts not a fan of these laws, although his son, the current King, is all for them. This ruling pushed Pheu Thai into the arms of smaller pro-military right wing parties, which whom they formed a government. Their PM Paetongtarn Shinawatra was removed from office by the constitutional court in light of a leaked phone conversation with Cambodian strongman Hun Sen, in the midst of a border crisis, in which she seemed “too deferential” to the Cambodian ruler.

So that was a lot. On to 2026, the Move Forward party is dead, long live the People’s Party. This is the second time courts have dissolved this party in the last decade and it’s come back with a shiny new identity. They’ve mostly lead by a lot in the polls, although they’ve come back down to earth a bit, but still polling between 35-40%. At around 20% each we find Pheu Thai and the Bhumjaithai Party (a right-populist party) vying or second. The Democrats, Thailand’s oldest political party known for their affection for markets and the monarchy, is polling in low double digits in 4th place.

The Guardian headline captures the basic dynamic here: “The Pro-Democracy People’s Party is leading in the polls, but Thailand has been here before.” Thailand is democratic enough to let a popular pro-democracy party get really close to power, but not not quite democratic enough to let them exercise it. They are led by a mild-mannered former software engineer, Natthaphong Ruengpanyawut, one of several dozen members of his party under investigation for vague, almost certainly electorally motivated corruption charges. Undaunted, they’ve centered their campaign around anti-corruption. They’re looking to poach votes from Pheu Thai strongholds like Udon Thani, as that party has fallen on hard times. Natthaphong has repeatedly emphasized the need for his party to win by a lot, as they will likely to continue to be the target of all manner of anti-democratic nonsense. A good benchline is the 151 seats Move Forward/People’s party won last time. While a majority isn’t considered likely, getting a lot closer is, and that could matter.

Voters will also be asked to vote on a constitutional referendum. The Thai people will be asked to vote to inaugurate the process of crafting a new constitution to replace the already heavily amended 2017 constitution. The aim is to begin the revision process to democratize the constitution, relative to the military-approved 2017 version that grants extensive power to the unelected, military-aligned senate.