Looking into 2023, the future of Thai politics remains uncertain, considering major reshuffles and internal rifts in various political parties. General Prayut Chan-o-cha’s future as Thailand’s prime minister is also up in the air.
-Prayut’s future-
According to a constitutional court ruling last year, over his controversial 8-year-term in office, Prayut can serve no more than two years if he is reelected. Since then, he has decided to join the Ruam Thai Sang Chart party, with hopes of staying in power, even though he has been in charge of the administration since the coup in 2014.
Whether Prayut’s future looks promising or whether he will still be “attractive” to eligible voters, Associate Professor Dr. Jade Donavanik, from the College of Asian Scholars thinks that it will depend on a few factors.
Some of those factors are how many votes Ruam Thai Sang Chart can garner during the elections, whether a group of conservative parties are still on the same side and how many promising candidates they can bring into their parties.
The most important factor, however, is Prayut himself.
“If General Prayut is able to stay for only two years, then that will be a problem, especially for the coalition,” according to Dr. Jade. “If Ruam Thai Sang Chart can gain a majority in the lower house, then that’s fine. They can dissolve parliament and start over again, or find someone who is suitable to be prime minister but, if it’s a coalition, will other parties buy this idea?”
Alternatively, Dr. Jade thinks there is still a way to get through the problem; amend the constitution to eliminate the 8-year-term rule.
“If only Pheu Thai and Move Forward parties buy this, then you can do away with [the rule] and then compete among all of the other parties, in order to find the next prime minister in the next four years.”
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-Neither clear ideology nor sustained policies-
As for the future of Thai politics, Dr. Jade thinks that each political party will not have a clear ideology, while the campaign policies will not be sustained. At the same time, politicians will still be switching parties.
Dr. Jade explains that policies are often “shaky”, especially when forming a coalition, as parties have to bundle some of the policies together. Bhumjaithai’s flagship cannabis-hemp bill, for example, faced many hurdles, despite its promising future at the beginning of their campaign.
“When they were pushing it during their campaigns, it looked very promising. When they formed a coalition with other parties, it still seemed to have a very bright future but, in the middle of the term, it looked shaky. When they were forming a committee to oversee the law, there were quarrels and arguments. When the bill came to parliament, they were playing political games and, in the end, it was turned down. Now Bhumjaithai wants to bring this game into their campaign.”
Last year, many people witnessed renowned politicians moving from larger parties to newly-established or lesser known ones. Apart from Prayut’s decision to join Ruam Thai Sang Chart, another notorious event was when former commerce minister Mingkwan Saengsuwan joined the Palang Pracharath party, with an uncertain status as to whether he would be nominated as one of the prime ministerial candidates, before abruptly quitting the party three weeks later.
Considering how politicians are switching parties, Dr. Jade noticed that it often involves personal benefits. In fact, a political party would only be “helpful” when there are certain people, such as party leaders or owners, who will be able to uphold the identity of each person.
“It’s very individualistic, that people would come to a party when they see benefits, especially personal benefits, family benefits, or group benefits. So, that’s the instability of political parties, Thai politics, or even democracy.”
The political expert also noticed that people seem to give importance to having political parties; to form ideologies and policies in order to develop the country. Sadly, Thai political parties seem to be more individualistic and people tend to choose certain parties mainly because of their key person, more than their ideologies. For example, the identity of Palang Pracharath Party is now General Prawit Wongsuwan, while the identity of Pheu Thai is still the Shinawatra Family.
“So, it’s a person, it’s not really a party. Political parties are just places that the constitution forces you to be in, and the political arena moves you to join with each other but, in reality, you don’t have an institution called a ‘political party’ in this country.”
-Who looks most promising?-
When looking at possible prime ministerial candidates, such as current prime minister Prayut from Ruam Thai Sang Chart Party, General Prawit Wongsuwan from Palang Pracharath Party, Paetongtarn Shinawatra from Pheu Thai Party or Anutin Charnvirakul from Bhumjaithai Party, Dr. Jade thinks Anutin looks most promising at the moment.
“Anutin has been in politics for a long time. His father is also in politics, grooming him in the way in which a politician needs to be. Maybe he doesn’t look like a strong figure, but among all, he has some experience. The person behind him is the PM maker, Newin Chidchob, who has done it several times.”
Whereas, for both PM Prayut and Prawit, Dr. Jade said that they both have the same reputation for causing the military coup in 2014, which toppled the Yingluck Shinawatra administration.
“General Prayut is a coup leader. General Prawit even pointed at Prayut while saying that he didn’t do it himself, but the whole world knows that they’re together. So he’s also part of the coup.”
Meanwhile, Paetongtarn has been gaining much popularity in various regions across Thailand, especially at the grassroots level. Dr. Jade is not, however, totally convinced that the daughter of the exiled leader, Thaksin, will truly shine, as he feels that Paetongtarn hasn’t been able to demonstrate her leadership, in order to earn the trust of the people, especially those who are not fans of Pheu Thai or the Shinawatra family.
“Paetongtarn’s political experience is unknown. We can’t say that she doesn’t have any and we can’t say that she’s incapable, but she has been delivering the old policies of her dad, her aunt or Pheu Thai policies. We don’t see anything new.”
As the general elections are expected to take place this May, Dr. Jade hopes that people have a better understanding of what kind of democracy they really have and will use their right to choose the best leader to develop the country, rather than being swayed by “dreamy” and unrealistic policies.
“So the power is in your hands. My hope is only for the people, I don’t really hope for the political parties and the candidates that much,” Dr. Jade concluded.
By Thai PBS World
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