Thailand’s Emerging New Political Alignment

In recent days the Pheu Thai leadership has publicly met with representatives of the conservative parties. These include the military-backed Palang Pracharat party, led by the politically influential general Prawit Wongsuwan. The two parties have more in common than one might think. In government, Palang Pracharat contained many politicians from Thaksin’s own former Thai Rak Thai party. Prior to the 2023 election, some Palang Pracharat politicians rejoined Pheu Thai, Thai Rak Thai’s successor party.

The other prospective partner is Bhumjaithai, another conservative populist party, which came third with 70 seats. Bhumjaithai is also part of Thaksin’s political network, having broken away from another earlier Thaksin party, Phalang Prachachon, in 2008.

Add some of the smaller parties and a Pheu Thai-led conservative coalition would have a majority of seats in the House of Representatives. This would be acceptable to the military-appointed Senate — and be able to form government. His daughter Paetongtarn Shinawatra’s announcement on 26 July that Thaksin will return to Thailand on 10 August would seem to confirm that a deal has been reached.

There is a political logic to a Pheu Thai-led conservative coalition. Despite coming second to Move Forward, Thaksin and Pheu Thai remain a powerful force in Thai politics. Thaksin has publicly declared that he wants to return home from exile, and is willing to face legal charges and even some (token) jail time.

But Thaksin may also have calculated that a conservative coalition would give considerable leverage to Pheu Thai. With the radical Move Forward on the rise, ironically the conservatives now need Thaksin, hence their apparent willingness to deal with their erstwhile enemy. It would be a win-win situation for Pheu Thai, much preferable to playing second fiddle to Move Forward.

If Pheu Thai and the conservative parties do form a coalition, this would represent an historic political shift. The two sides have been in a political war since 2006. The conservatives have thrown everything at Thaksin — two military coups, three party dissolutions, the banning of his leading politicians, the seizure of his assets, drafting constitutions designed to keep him from winning elections, and killing scores of his ‘Red Shirt’ supporters in a violent crackdown on protests in 2010.  Now, Thaksin may feel satisfied that the conservative parties have come begging to form a coalition to keep out Move Forward, whom they regard as the greater danger.

What would happen to Move Forward? It is possible the Constitutional Court will ban its popular leader, Pita, from politics, and maybe some of the other leading figures in Move Forward, to send a message to the party to tone down its radicalism. The Constitutional Court might even decide to dissolve the party altogether, as it did to the party’s previous incarnation, Future Forward, in 2020. The chance of this happening would increase if Move Forward continued to agitate on reforming the lèse majesté law.

But dissolving the party would be risky, given the widespread support it enjoys among the urban middle class. It would likely further radicalise Thailand’s youth, whose protests calling for fundamental reform of the monarchy in August 2020 shocked the country.

The Move Forward Party was born out of the dissolution of Future Forward, and in just three years it almost doubled its vote. It won every seat but one in Bangkok, which dominates national politics. Conservatives have to be careful not to overplay their hand.

While the conservatives appear to have seized a victory from the jaws of their election defeat, their overall position may be weaker than it seems. The long struggle between democratic reformers and Thailand’s conservative establishment may be entering a new phase.

Patrick Jory is an Associate Professor of Southeast Asian History at The University of Queensland. The article is published courtesy of the East Asia Forum.