On the surface, it looks like the ruling party and its biggest ally are reaching a breaking point. However, they are in fact like an estranged husband and wife still locked together by a “Till death do us part” contract.
In politics, there is no disagreement too big to dissolve. And at a crunch time like this, the Pheu Thai and Bhumjaithai parties are needing each other more than ever before. Why? Because separation would kill them both.
Representing the conservatives, Bhumjaithai does not want an aggressive charter reform. The party knows full well that it needs Pheu Thai on its side because if the latter joined hands with the People’s Party, the pro-change juggernaut would become too powerful to stop.
Pheu Thai, meanwhile, cannot dump Bhumjaithai for obvious reasons. Without the second biggest coalition party, there are only two choices: Bring in the People’s Party or the prime minister would have to call a new election.
Both choices are a no-no. While the People’s Party is mathematically big enough to boost the government’s strength, the newcomers would seek to control many things that traditionally belong to the largest political camp.
The Finance Ministry will go, and so will the momentum of the Digital Wallet and the build-up toward an Entertainment Complex.
Pheu Thai has come too far beyond the point of no-return when Digital Wallet is concerned, and it will not let anybody else call the shots on the Entertainment Complex. Both projects would be jeopardized with the arrival of the People’s Party.
And this is assuming that the People’s Party will agree to swallow its pride and form a new government with Pheu Thai. In reality, both parties have drifted too far apart.
Apart from its steely ideological determination, public perceptions of the People’s Party don’t allow it to flip-flop.
In other words, the People’s Party would rather wait for the next election.
Which will not come any time soon. House dissolution is nothing more than an empty threat that Pheu Thai uses in order to keep the conservatives at bay. A new election can see a People’s Party landslide, which will hurt Pheu Thai as much as the conservatives.
The upcoming no-confidence debate against Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra will be an absurd political event bizarre in a few major aspects.
The People’s Party will say what it probably hates to say. The conservatives will secretly like to hear yet they will publicly defend her against it anyway.
As a political camp with a reputation to “fight for political victims”, the People’s Party cannot go all out against Paetongtarn when it comes to her father, Thaksin. Yet how can the People’s Party handle a censure that virtually has Thaksin as the centrepiece?
The conservatives, on the other hand, will have to vote to support Paetongtarn, in effect officially acknowledging that what her father has done currently and in the past is nothing wrong. Like the People’s Party but for a different reason, they will grit their teeth throughout the censure.
Whether or not Thaksin is affecting the political tempo should not be a question. From his return from Dubai, to the setting up of the Srettha government that incorporated the conservatives, to the naming of his daughter Paetongtarn Shinawatra as current prime minister, to the revival of the Entertainment Complex idea, agreements at the highest levels have to have been made.
What is more interesting is how much the People’s Party can talk about it at the censure debate. It’s a very narrow and tricky tightrope.
One way to do it is portraying Pheu Thai as an ideological fake. The People’s Party can sidestep “persecution” and instead accuse Pheu Thai of allowing expediency to blur ideology.
This will make Pheu Thai and the People’s Party drift farther apart and drive Pheu Thai every closer toward the conservatives. So, this strategy has pros and cons.
The main positive is that the censure can be a declaration of independence, an occasion to make it official that Pheu Thai and the People’s Party are now biggest political enemies. It’s an “Us or them” shout-out for the next election.
Bad news is that it’s a make or break move. Calling Pheu Thai fake will practically rule out future reunion, and that can make the People’s Party shrink if it is not strong enough.
At least for now, a divorce between Pheu Thai and the conservatives is impossible.Not when the planned charter reform, the Entertainment Complex idea, Yingluck Shinawatra’s “return”, an d how the Department of Special Investigation would treat senatorial election controversies are reaching crucial stages.
