People thinking that what they saw from the 2023 election to Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul’s House dissolution was Thailand at its politically ironic best will just have to wait a few more weeks.
Ones can assume that nothing can beat the Pheu Thai-conservative handshake and, later, the People’s Party’s decision to vote for Anutin’s nomination as prime minister, but 2026 may prove them wrong.
What then can happen after the upcoming snap election?
A People’s Party landslide is the first scenario, but it’s probably the unlikeliest possibility. Mind you, this would provide Thailand with the most straightforward political landscape, though. Tension would be high, yes, but it would be the most uncomplicated tension.
A massive landslide would grant the People’s Party a single-party rule, allowing it to take big leads in charter amendments and perhaps implement some controversial ideas. This would lead to old-fashioned political standoffs, huge yet simple ones.
The second scenario is the People’s Party needing Pheu Thai to complete the majority control of Parliament. This scenario requires both parties to win big, which is possible for the former but improbable for the latter.
Although both parties have been drifting away politically, they are not ideologically. Pheu Thai remains the People’s Party’s only ally when drastic constitutional ideas are concerned.
This scenario requires the People’s Party to win well above 100 seats and Pheu Thai to do more or less the same. This was super easy in 2023 but can be quite tricky now, with the Democrats threatening to recapture some Bangkok constituencies and hence pushing back the People’s Party, and Bhumjaithai optimistically and realistically eyeing a lot of provincial battlegrounds, hence making things difficult for Pheu Thai.
The People’s Party and Pheu Thai can count on their loyal fan bases, so both parties winning more than 250 seats combined is not impossible. However, a lot of forgiving and forgetting would have to happen if a People’s Party-Pheu Thai government was to be formed. Old mistrust would have to be discarded and new, huge trust established.
The third scenario features a Pheu Thai-conversative déjà vu. Thaksin Shinawatra, his sister and his daughter are not yet out of the wood, so a repeat of the 2023 controversial partnership cannot be ruled out.
The fourth scenario is more unthinkable than a Pheu Thai-conservative union. This one has the People’s Party throw everything away ideologically to form a coalition government with Bhumjaithai. If not much goes wrong for Bhumjaithai from here, it and the People’s Party should be numerically strong enough together.
In the fifth scenario, seats are scattered and nobody wins big. Let alone a single-party rule, not even a two-party combo is possible, meaning a third or possibly fourth and fifth party is essential for government formation.
Political analysts consider this fifth scenario to be the likeliest. It means anyone can play hard to get or become a kingmaker.
For example, the People’s Party and Pheu Thai may need the Democrats or Kla Tham to complete the majority. Or Pheu Thai and Democrats will woo Bhumjaithai to form a solid post-election alliance.
Horse trading will be intense. Key ministries will be dangled in the negotiations. Smaller parties, no matter how tiny, can drive a hard bargain.
The chance of seats spreading out among parties is high. Veteran Suranand Vejjajiva, who is also a fair and largely-recognised political analyst despite his strong connections with Pheu Thai, has said that he did not think the People’s Party will sweep Bangkok like in 2023.
The Thai capital this time may feature a fierce three-horse race involving the People’s Party, Democrats and Pheu Thai, and Suranand wouldn’t be surprised if the three camps share seats in the city.
A reliable popularity poll very recently confirmed significant drops in nationwide support for the People’s Party and Pheu Thai, while Bhumjaithai’s rise would unlikely be enough to form a purely conservative government.
If NIDA polls are any indication, the next election could be a much closer race than in 2023. The leader of the People’s Party, Nutthaphong Ruengpanyawut, has remained the most popular as the next prime minister, but his support has dropped from 25.8% at the beginning of the year to 17.2% this month, while Anutin’s has jumped to 12.3% from just 2.8% early this year when he was not prime minister.
The People’s Party must be wishing the snap election was held in the second quarter of this year, when its NIDA Poll popularity peaked at 46%. It was 33% in the third quarter and 25.2% this month, obviously a systematic decline.
Bhumjaithai leapt from only 3.3% in the first quarter to 9.9% now. That is still a far cry from the support the People’s Party enjoys, but Bhumjaithai does not even have to win the election to get the premiership, unlike its opponent.
Much will depend on how the “undecided voters” mark their ballots. According to NIDA polls, this group started the year below those supporting the People’s Party and Pheu Thai at just 13.7% but have become the biggest section of voters now, constituting 32.3%.
The 32.3% was in the “most popular party” category. When it came to the most popular prime ministerial “candidate”, the undecided portion was even bigger, or 40.6%. Nutthaphong only got 17.2% and Anutin 12.3%.
As we can see, even a Nutthaphong-Anutin combination cannot match the I-see-nobody group. And even if Democrat leader Abhisit Vejjajiva (10.7%) was thrown in, the biggest group would still be a little bit bigger.
The 40.6% is bad news for both Anutin and Nutthaphong. Because of Cambodia, this “undecided” group should have been smaller when the former was concerned. But it was a damning verdict for the latter, too, because the surveyed Thais practically said their “alternative” is “no alternative”.
This does not mean Nutthaphong cannot play the kingmaker again. He, Abhisit, Pirapan Salirathavibhaga (United Thai Nation leader) and Prawit Wongsuwan (Palang Pracharath leader) can all determine who the next prime minister is. Leaders of smaller parties will be capable of that as well if they had the wanted numbers.
And as regressive as Pheu Thai appears, it will at least have a big decisive role to play after the election.
What about Anutin? He used to work with Pheu Thai and, after breaking up, received weird support from the People’s Party. Both parties are now disliking him for different reasons. To add to that, his situation dictates that he should wait for, not give out, support.
Thai politics has a strange fondness for breaking the rules, however. This means that if conditions are right, Anutin, or his party, can become like anyone else, a kingmaker to be exact.
According to Suranand, the most difficult thing now for camps that rely largely on public moods like the People’s Party is how to “manage the sentiment”. Bhumjaithai will not be too concerned with that, because many of its candidates have traditional footholds in their constituencies so they don’t require a “fever” to win, Suranand said.
Pheu Thai is somewhere in between. Sentiment gave them seats in the past, but the party also boasts strong rural candidates who can win on their own, he pointed out.
Suranand thinks the sentiment now favours Bhumjaithai, but he reiterates that political moods swing wildly and quickly in Thailand. It just takes weeks for everyone, including pollsters and analysts, to go back to the drawing board.
In this era, it may only take days.
