Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra’s immediate task is to survive the turbulence looming in front of her in an odd political atmosphere in which not much has been different in the big picture but chaotic details are getting a lot wilder.
Even after the removal of Srettha Thavisin as prime minister, the appointment of his replacement Paetongtarn Shinawatra, the unveiling of the new Cabinet that the Democrats have joined, Thailand’s extremely-sensitive political equilibrium remains pretty much the same as the aftermath of last year’s general election.
Pheu Thai is still allying itself with former enemies that the party can never trust. The conservatives are still hiding knives behind their backs. The People’s Party still can do nothing but wait.
However, that the fragile balance remains intact does not mean Thailand will continue to see Pheu Thai, the conservatives and the People’s Party (Move Forward) playing the same tactics.
The situation is peculiar, like a two-goal gap in football. If one team scores a goal to make it 2-0, the momentum is with the leading team. If one team was leading 3-0 until the other team scores to make it 3-1, the latter team will be buoyed although it is still losing.
Simply put, Thailand in the immediate aftermath of the general election and Thailand run by the Paetongtarn Cabinet at present are both a two-goal situation in the big picture, but details are very different. Mistrust is growing, and so is paranoid. Scheming will intensify.
The dissolution of the Move Forward Party, Srettha’s removal, Thaksin Shinawatra’s return to hyper political action and Paetongtarn’s appointment as the new prime minister, and potential legal troubles of the father and daughter are the key details that did not exist last year. They will dictate everyone’s game plan.
The People’s Party (Move Forward) remains formidable, but probably not as much as before due to generational wipeouts of its leadership. On the surface, this should please Pheu Thai, but truth is that without the conservatives’ fear of the main opposition party, the ruling party cannot thrive.
After the general election last May, all Pheu Thai wanted was to lead to a coalition government, and all the conservatives needed was to get Move
Forward out of the way. The common need to neutralise the election winner was strong.
Now that the crucial new details have emerged, Pheu Thai will have to be the most meticulous of the three. It will need to keep the fear alive and not present itself as a bigger threat. It will have to convince the conservatives that they still need the party but at the same time not get too bossy or wield too much self-importance.
Therefore, issues like drastic constitutional amendment may have to make way for, say, support for Digital Wallet. And although Pheu Thai is the biggest muscle in the coalition government, Yingluck Shinawatra may have to postpone any plan to return from exile.
As for the People’s Party, it will require the least strategic adjustment among the trio. The camp is in the opposition, has thrived on a confrontational, no-holds-barred approach based on ideological unorthodoxy and has gone too far to mend fences with Pheu Thai, so the only way to go is more of the same.
The Democrats joining the government is a small blow, but it came after a bigger one, the Move Forward’s dissolution. This leaves the People’s Party with no option except magnifying its selling point, because it will have to win the next election by the biggest landslide possible.
Yet boldly supporting the extremist activists on the street is a dangerous thing to do. This might warrant a slight change of strategy. Such support will have to be more subtle, so the People’s Party can avoid potential trouble while it waits for the next election.
Move Forward comfortably swept aside Pheu Thai even before it was clear the latter would make an ideological U-turn, so what can possibly happen next is not difficult to predict.
Unlike Pheu Thai and the People’s Party, the conservatives don’t have legal fears. But they are the smallest force in Parliament and not totally united themselves. To add to that, they and their supporters are divided over who scares them more between the People’s Party and Pheu Thai.
What is the conservatives’ game plan then? Nobody knows for certain. Many thought a deal had been cut, but then Article 112 was hurled against Thaksin and Srettha was removed. Paetongtarn’s days are numbered even before she starts working.
It will be a game of brinkmanship, primarily between the conservatives and Pheu Thai, depending on how the former feel and how far Thaksin Shinawatra goes. Imagine being powerful but unable to trust anyone at the workplace. Their scheming _ real or suspected _ constantly changes, but so does yours.
What comes next could be the volcanic activity upping another notch in an apparently-unchanged grand scheme of things where volatility is already high.
