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Thailand's Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra attends a press conference at the Pheu Thai party headquarters after the royal endorsement ceremony.
New Thai PM’s party ejects military-backed coalition partners
The Pheu Thai party announced Monday that it would eject the military-backed Palang Pracharat party from its incoming government.
The move comes after Palang Pracharat’s leader Prawit Wongsuwon, a former army chief with powerful royal connections, refused to attend the vote to approve new Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra. As a result, Pheu Thai will lose 40 Palang Pracharat representatives, but its leaders say they expect to maintain a majority in Parliament.
Politics are personal in Thailand: Prawit participated in the 2006 coup against Paetongtarn’s father, Thaksin Shinawatra, and the 2014 coup against her aunt Yingluck Shinawatra. The billionaire Shinawatra clan and its Pheu Thai party formed an alliance of necessity last year with the military to prevent the upstart reformist Move Forward party from taking power, despite winning the most votes in the 2023 election. Pheu Thai took the helm last August, and Thaksin returned from exile and was pardoned by King Vajiralongkorn.
It’s not a total schism: Pheu Thai will still work with the United Thai Nation party, also heavily linked to the military and monarchy, and Paetongtarn has consistently opposed repealing laws against criticizing the king (but there is plenty to criticize).
Pheu Thai needs middle-class Thai voters. The military-monarchy connection is deeply rooted in Thailand, and voters have generally tolerated military intervention in the name of national security. There’s no sign of a looming coup — but the Shinawatras are 0 for 2 when it comes to peaceful transitions out of power.Skyline von Bangkok Skyline von Bangkok. Panorama von Chinatown. Bangkok, Changwat Bangkok, Thailand, 26.01.2024
Thailand set to hand out $13 billion to citizens
Thai Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin announced Monday that citizens will be able to register for a digital wallet handout starting in August that will give about $275 each to 50 million people. It’s the latest in a series of populist policies put forward by the ruling Pheu Thai party, which cut a deal with the military to take power last year.
The idea is to offer folks an incentive to download the new digital wallet. Digital currencies are issued by a country’s central bank and function just like the fiat money you use every day. There are pilot programs in the EU, China, India, Saudi Arabia, and many other countries.
The government claims this handout, equivalent to roughly 66% of the average monthly income in Thailand, will help grow the economy by about 1.6%. The program is restricted to Thais who earn less than $23,000 a year (about three-quarters of the population) and they’ll have to spend it in small shops near their homes. But the Bank of Thailand has concerns – as do many economists, as it will push the debt-to-GPD ratio past 66% and increase the fiscal deficit.
That may be a risk Srettha is willing to run, considering his approval rate hovers around 12.85%. His efforts to pass popular policy, including a recriminalization of cannabis, and legalization of same-sex marriage, have done little to erase the stain Pheu Thai acquired by siding with the military to push out the Move Forward party, who won the largest share of seats in 2023. We are watching whether handing out cash can reverse his slide.FILE PHOTO: Thai LGBT community participates in Gay Freedom Day Parade in Bangkok, Thailand November 29, 2018.
Thailand Moves One Step Closer to Marriage Equality
Thailand’s House of Representatives approved a bill aiming to secure legal recognition of same-sex marriages, a historic first in Southeast Asia. It passed with overwhelming support: 400 votes in favor and 10 against. The bill will ensure all couples equal rights under the law in key areas like marital tax savings, property inheritance, medical rights, and child adoption.
Thailand is known for being one of the few safe havens for the LGBTQ+ community on a continent with historically restrictive laws. Thai law lagged public opinion, with polls showing as many as 96.6% of respondents supporting same-sex marriage legalization. The country is known internationally for its thriving, public social scene, as well as by many media watchers for their hugely popular queer “Boy Love (BL)” dramas and RuPaul’s Drag Race spinoff.
Thailand’s ruling Pheu Thai party capitalized on this gap between policy and public opinion. The opposition Move Forward Party – fueled by a progressive wave of young voters – campaigned on the issue during their most recent election cycle. Move Forward won the most seats in parliament but was shut out after Pheu Thai struck a deal with conservative and military-aligned parties.
Many assumed a continuation of the status quo was imminent. Voting on same-sex marriage legislation was a low-risk, high-reward move for Pheu Thai that would appease progressives angered by the sidelining of Move Forward and draw positive international attention without any pushback from their base.
The bill still requires approval from the Senate and an endorsement from the king. Thailand will then follow only Taiwan and Nepal (kind of) as countries that allow same-sex unions in Asia.Former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
Thailand’s former PM to be paroled
Thailand’s former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra is set to be granted parole after serving just six months of an eight-year jail sentence.
A brief history: Having dominated Thai politics for a generation, Thaksin – a populist billionaire – lived in self-imposed exile for 15 years after he was ousted by the military in 2006. Convicted in absentia of graft and abuse of power in 2008, he returned to Thailand just before last autumn’s election after striking a deal with the military establishment party that originally ousted him.
The progressive Move Forward Party won the election by rallying the youth and promising change. But Thaksin’s Pheu Thai Party was closely behind and allied with the military establishment to appoint Pheu Thai’s candidate as prime minister.
Pheu Thai is effectively controlled by the Shinawatra family – Thaksin’s daughter was made the party chair last year – and although Thaksin has not signaled he will seek office, he will likely serve as a powerful figure behind the scenes.
What this means for Thailand: When Move Forward won last year, it looked like Thailand was on track for change. But now, with Pheu Thai in power, Thaksin poised to play kingmaker, and even the planned re-criminalization of weed – which Move Forward fought to legalize – it looks like the status quo has returned to the Land of the Smiles. Unless, that is Move Forward uses its rallying power to get its followers out on the street.
Move Forward Party leader and PM candidate Pita Limjaroenrat celebrate the party's election results in Bangkok, Thailand.
A guide to Thailand’s messy post-election politics
On Sunday, Thai voters shocked the ruling pro-military establishment by delivering a landslide victory for the democratic opposition. Okay, so that means the generals are out, right?
Nope.
For one thing, the men in uniform pre-rigged the election. After taking over in a 2014 coup, they rewrote the constitution to appoint the entire 250-member Senate, which picks the prime minister along with 500 MPs elected by popular vote. To form a government without the army’s consent, you need a majority of at least 376 seats, equivalent to three-quarters of the lower chamber.
Thailand’s military, with a long and rather successful history of intervening in politics, did this to ensure they would still call the shots no matter how their coalition performed at the ballot box. (Even before tweaking the charter, the country’s fragmented parliament and weak party system made it difficult for any party to win an outright majority.)
Regardless, the frontrunner for PM is 42-year-old Pita Limjaroenrat, a telegenic, English-speaking businessman whose progressive Move Forward Party got the most votes and seats. Against all odds, MFP bested the Pheu Thai (For Thais) Party backed by exiled former PM Thaksin Shinawatra, whose parties had won every single Thai election since he swept to power in 2001.
MFP and Pheu Thai — now captained by Thaksin’s millennial daughter, Paetongtarn — quickly announced a six-party coalition to form a government. But together they only have 309 seats, 67 shy of the minimum threshold to override the army’s likely Senate veto.
To get that supermajority, the opposition might reach out to an unlikely kingmaker: the Bhumjaithai or “Thai Pride Party,” which came in third with 71 MPs. Bhumjaithai’s claim to fame is having led the charge for Thailand to legalize recreational cannabis, which the government actually did last year despite the country being famous for its very tough anti-drug laws.
Unfortunately, being pro-weed puts Bhumjaithai at odds with Pheu Thai, whose socially conservative rural base hates stoners and supported Thaksin’s bloody war on drugs in the early 2000s. Similarly, Bhumjaithai is also an establishment royalist party that won’t allow MFP to reform Thailand’s draconian lèse-majesté laws, popularly known as “112” for the article in the criminal code that punishes offenses to the king with up to 15 years behind bars.
What’s more, even if these three parties cut a deal, a very big if, the generals won’t leave without putting up a (political) fight.
The Thai army has ways to hold onto power despite losing big in the election. Its political allies could seek to dissolve MFP on bogus election law violation charges, as they did with its predecessor, Future Forward. (That disqualification triggered the 2020-2021 youth-led protests that rocked Thailand and turned out many first-time voters to back MFP.)
And if that doesn’t pan out, the generals might try to use the judiciary to remove the premier on even more ludicrous grounds. After all, the constitutional court once fried a sitting PM for … hosting a cooking show.
Still, if the generals pull a fast one, there could be major trouble ahead. How would you feel if you voted for change, yet got more of the same?
If anything is certain in Thai politics, it’s that violent street protests are sooner or later followed by a military coup, with the king’s blessing of course. And that’ll plunge the Land of Smiles deeper into political Groundhog Day.