I wrote this post before the endless rain that has devastated many parts of Bangkok. I briefly wondered if this week should focus on the government’s response to the floods. At this point, I don’t have much more to add on the political implications other than the government’s disaster warning system has once again proven inadequate, with the warnings hitting peoples’ phones well into the start of the flooding, rendering them moot. The fact that the Thai Meteorological Department is stuck in a PR war with an amateur Facebook page on whose warnings were more accurate speaks for itself.

With the floods receding in most areas, hopefully we will see a quick rebound for the capital and rapid relief for the districts still inundated.

The Thai media first began reporting that Kla Tham “indicated their intention” to exit the opposition whip. Then, chief opposition whip Parit Wacharasindhu (from the People’s Party) announced that he had decided to expel Kla Tham after the party voted in support of Bhumjaithai’s budget. Kla Tham’s spokesman Atthakorn Sirilatthayakorn said that the party “respects its removal from the opposition alliance but remains independent and is not committed to either political camp.”

Two things to note here. First, this sequence of events is a little confusing and begs the question of what actually happened first. My guess would be that, hearing indications that Kla Tham were planning to resign the opposition whip, the People’s Party took action first and expelled the party — but I don’t know for sure. Second, I struggle to think of a precedent for this. Plenty of parties have been expelled from government coalitions but I cannot recall the last time a party was asked to leave the official opposition bloc. Indeed, my guess would be that this has never happened. The fact that it is happening now should indicate how publicly Kla Tham is signaling itself to be a pseudo-opposition party waiting for the opportunity to join the Bhumjaithai government.1

It’s important to remind ourselves that Kla Tham’s exclusion from the Bhumjaithai-led coalition government was unexpected. Kla Tham had been an original member of the Frankenstein minority government that Bhumjaithai put together in the wake of the collapse of the Pheu Thai administration. The two party appeared to be such close allies that analysts have found suggestive evidence (see Joel Selway’s analysis here) that the two parties may have coordinated their election campaigns earlier this year. Whether or not that is true, Anutin and Thammanat clearly signaled before the election that they were intending to remain united in a coalition. But in a surprise, after winning the election, Bhumjaithai reportedly gave harsh terms to Kla Tham, including requiring the latter to cede the prized Ministry of Agriculture, and in the end Bhumjaithai chose not to invite Kla Tham after all. So in a sense, the addition of Kla Tham to the coalition would simply be a return to what had been the long-expected government makeup all along.

In another sign that Bhumjaithai and Kla Tham ties are becoming closer, Thammanat was seen wearing a Casio watch similar to one worn by Anutin. That particular watch is even engraved with Anutin’s name. Kla Tham secretary-general Pai Lik furthered the speculation by posting: “This is not a first-hand watch. Basically, it was taken from the wrist.”

But assuming Bhumjaithai truly is preparing to welcome Kla Tham into the government, why now? The government coalition remains stable, with 292 MPs in a lower house of 500. There are no reports of serious infighting within the coalition between Bhumjaithai and Pheu Thai, so presumably the former is not preparing to eject the latter from the government.

Indeed, I can think of plenty of reasons why Bhumjaithai should not do this. Too big a government would make cabinet quotas difficult to divide up; Pheu Thai is already signaling that it wants to retain the five ministries that it received from Bhumjaithai in their original coalition agreement, but Bhumjaithai would presumably not want to give Kla Tham only its own portion of ministries. Kla Tham brings with it plenty of baggage that would not improve the government’s image. And there are longstanding fears that allowing Kla Tham to join the government would allow the party to grow even stronger, fueling its local strength further and making it even more able to wield the power of patronage.

Perhaps Anutin wants to kick out some of the more outspoken minor coalition members (some smaller parties like the Economic Party and the United Thai Nation Party at times feel like a pseudo-opposition party, but in the reverse sense of Kla Tham). But swapping out five MPs for a party of 58 is overkill. Or it is a sign of strength that Bhumjaithai can afford to ignore public opinion and bring Kla Tham into the government. That would indicate, however, that the party is bringing something to the table that the public is not yet aware of.

For now, Kla Tham is in the role of what we could call an “independent” opposition party.2 It is a state that the party is unlikely to find itself in for long, however, with the way things are evolving.

Good morning from The Coffee Parliament. The biggest piece of news in Thailand in the past week was the Electoral Commission’s decision to refer 77 individuals to the Supreme Court as part of the Senate collusion case. (Need a primer on what that’s about? Click here). The breakdown is as follows: out of the 427 people suspected of involvement in Senate collusion, the EC decided to refer 26 serving senators, 36 candidates, and 15 other individuals. Although top party executives such as Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul were on the initial list, no one in the Bhumjaithai Party was referred.

Just last week, I spent some time dissecting what we’ve learned after a year of Bhumjaithai rule and the elements that underpin the party’s systemic hegemony. The removal of this biggest legal danger to the government in a sense reinforces the party’s dominance over contemporary Thai politics, and there are few other court challenges that remain outstanding. A previous question mark on the legality of the government’s loan decree has already been cleared by the Constitutional Court.

But what remains is the court of public opinion, and there things may perhaps be shakier. Unsurprisingly, the major opposition parties have raised questions about the EC’s decision to refer just 77 non-Bhumjaithai individuals. Natthaphong Rueangpanyawut, the leader of the People’s Party, announced that the party will use both legal and parliamentary mechanisms to scrutinize the EC’s decision. Parit Wacharasindhu accused the EC of not seeing the “elephants” in the room. Meanwhile, Democrat leader Abhisit Vejjajiva assembled a team of legal eagles to analyze the EC’s actions and argued that “September 14th marks the beginning, not the end, of the process.”

Interestingly, the EC decision was not unanimous, instead being taken in a 5 to 2 vote. Some observers have noted that the two dissenters were appointed by the previous Senate that had been selected by the 2014 military coupmakers, while four of the five majority commissioners were appointed by the current upper house. One of the minority commissioners, Sittichote Intaravises, felt compelled to organize his own press conference to explain why he disagreed with the majority opinion.1

I’m not currently convinced that much more will amount from the Senate collusion case,2 opposition protests and minority EC discomfort notwithstanding. The demonstration organized by iLaw on the eve of the EC decision was not especially large, and it makes me wonder how much cut-through this issue has for the public in general. (The process of Senate selection is byzantine, the role of the Senate itself is usually overshadowed by the lower house, and why exactly Senate selection “collusion” is illegal may not be widely understood). Indeed, a NIDA poll recently found that most Thais are not concerned by the EC’s decision.

At the same time, however, there’s no doubting that Bhumjaithai could certainly do without the continual drip of negative headlines emanating from this case. In a sense, conservatives loaned the party their vote without full love or trust — more a convenient ally than beloved partner. So we’ll need to keep an eye out on whether or not opposition talking points on the Senate collusion case achieves more momentum. Alone, it might not, but combined with other challenges facing Bhumjaithai, things may be shakier than we first expected heading into Anutin’s second year as prime minister.3

In other news…

• The People’s Party lost a byelection for Nonthaburi Provincial Administrative Organization Chairman by a significant margin on Sunday, continuing a string of unsuccessful local elections for the party outside of Bangkok. (The election had been triggered after a former MP shot and killed the previous PAO chairman). Nonthaburi is one of the most urbanized areas of the country outside Bangkok proper, so it should have been one of the friendliest terrains for the PP.

• According to Anutin, Thailand is nearing a tariff deal with the United States, although some hurdles remain. The prime minister will be in the US between September 21 to 27 to attend the UN General Assembly, but there is currently no scheduled meeting with President Donald Trump.

• The process of UNCLOS conciliation between Thailand and Cambodia has begun.

It has now been over one year since Anutin Charnvirakul took office as prime minister. From September 2025 to September 2026, Anutin has converted a short-term minority government with the most wobbly of foundations to one of the most hegemonic elected administrations in the past twenty years. If you told a Thai political observer even just five years ago that this would be the case, they would have found the prospect fanciful. In this post, I want to spend some time taking stock of everything we have learned from the first year of the Anutin era.

Anutin Charnvirakul once compared himself to kaeng ho, a northern curry that was traditionally made from leftover ingredients. A biographer interpreted this through the lens of a Carabao song: this was the process of mixing together diverse parts of society to build a resilient and successful country.1 But kaeng ho is also an apt description of the government that Anutin has built. Nothing about the Bhumjaithai system is particularly new. All of its ingredients predate Anutin’s ascension as prime minister. What is new is how the party has mixed these diverse — in some ways discordant — elements together to build a system that is greater than the sum of its parts.

What are some of these elements? Bhumjaithai has built on its reputation of strong local service delivery, first in its stronghold of Buriram (where the party’s popularity rivals Banharn Silpa-archa’s in Suphanburi in his heyday), and then expanding across the lower northeast and central regions. By the 2026 general election, the party built an electoral death star with a constellation of local families coming together to give the party unparalleled constituency strength. “Local politics is the root of larger politics,” Kla Tham leader Thammanat once said. It turns out that no one understood this better than his former allies in Bhumjaithai. Allegations of election irregularities aside, it was this local strength that became decisive in ensuring Bhumjaithai would become the first party to win an election despite not being the most popular party nationally on the party-list ballot.

At the same time, Anutin combined this (to some extent preexisting) local strength with a new conservative rebrand of Bhumjaithai. It was a steady effort that Bhumjaithai had begun embarking on since the 2023 general election, and by this year, the transformation has become complete. No major party is now more closely identified with defending the traditional institutions than Bhumjaithai, and no party has been bolder in asserting its nationalist credentials. (“If you’re going to be obsessed with Thailand, take it to the extreme,” Anutin said during the campaign). Once the conservative standard bearer was General Prayut Chan-o-cha; Anutin appears to have been successful when he beseeched “Lung Tu’s voters” to vote for “Lung Nu” instead. For moderate voters concerned about competent management, Anutin has also ensured that he has met their concerns. A decade or two ago one would have said technocratic management was the domain of the Democrats. Bhumjaithai’s technocratic turn — as much as one might want to contest this branding — has given the party a sense of governing credibility that it did not previously have.

Governing is different from campaigning, of course, and here the record is far more mixed. The Anutin administration sometimes appears to resemble an iPhone Duo, the result of a diverse party giving way to a kaleidoscopic cabinet operating along different lines. We have Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Ekniti Nitithanpraphas, whose fiefdom is the macroeconomy. One of the administration’s most difficult and potentially most impactful reform efforts, an initiative to reduce the size of government, appears to be the turf of Deputy Prime Minister Pakorn Nilprapunt. But at the same time, we have the so-called lookthep faction of ministers who hail from the local families. There are mounting concerns over the TH-AI Passport or the Land Bridge project (eventually shelved). Scandals within the Interior Ministry, which Anutin himself has now headed for years, remains a problem. The government’s initial handling of the energy crisis was so widely panned that it placed Ekniti in charge to resurrect credibility. One still wonders, when push comes to shove, which side of the Duo government has to fold.

And what of Anutin himself, as prime minister? Anutin seems to make the headlines more often for his musical diplomacy — singing with Lawrence Wong, serenading Li Qiang, providing the saxophone accompaniment for Anwar Ibrahim — than for policy pronouncements. When one thought of previous prime ministers, signature projects came to mind: Thaksin Shinawatra’s many initiatives, Abhisit Vejjajiva’s Thai Khemkhaeng program, Prayut Chan-o-cha’s Thailand 4.0 vision and the Eastern Economic Corridor. A year into his premiership, where Anutin’s foremost priorities lie can still feel like a bit of a mystery.

But perhaps it is also the easy-going demeanor of the prime minister that has kept the government secure. One year into his tenure, he has not yet become ridiculously unpopular. That is not faint praise. His favorability has dropped, to be sure — NIDA poll’s second quarter had him trailing People’s Party leader Natthaphong Rueangpanyawut by five percent — but recent prime ministers had suffered far larger deficits. At one point, Srettha Thavisin was over 30 points behind Pita Limjaroenrat. To some extent this is explainable by the fact that Anutin, for whatever reason, simply does not engender the same level of affection or disdain that some of his predecessors, like Thaksin or Prayut, ever did. Few will defend him to the last; at the same time, he is not a hate figure. In an age where incumbents of all stripes across the world are unpopular, that is not a bad place to be.

Even more important, however, is the fact that the Bhumjaithai government took office for a second term with the opposition in a state of disarray. The People’s Party still finds itself taunted on virtually a weekly basis by senior Bhumjaithai figures for its support of Anutin’s minority government last year. It has made few changes to its leadership lineup in spite of a distinct lack of buzz. The Democrat Party is too small to pose any real threat to the government, and its path forward remains unclear. Kla Tham continues to toss signals of friendship to Bhumjaithai (last week voting as a bloc in support of the government budget), thus decreasing the number of reliable opposition votes even further. With the opposition weakened and divided, the only real threat to Anutin can only come from within. Here, too, the government still looks strong one year later. Despite rumors of intra-party disputes, Bhumjaithai still appears united enough to function. Pheu Thai has proven to be a cooperative ally so far, with Thaksin, perhaps chastened by his recent experiences, mostly lying low. A traffic light coalition does not look like it is truly on the cards yet.

Just as crucial for Bhumjaithai is its hegemony within the political system as a whole. The courts have not yet had a chance to rule on the Senate collusion case, but regardless of how they came to be selected, analysts have widely noted that allies of the government form a majority of the upper house. This is particularly important given the Senate’s role in handling appointments to the independent agencies and the Constitutional Court. Except for the second year of Prayut’s term, when the Senate was wholly appointed by the preceding military junta, there are few parallels for an elected government that has had as much power outside the lower house.

And so we have learned a lot in the first year of Bhumjaithai’s government, which we can summarize as three major planks of the Bhumjaithai system. 1) The kaeng ho political synergy allowed Anutin to convert his minority government into a majority coalition. This led to 2) the administrative reality of the dual-track technocratic/look thep cabinet. While this arrangement has yet to bear fruit in terms of developmental outcomes, and indeed has already produced some policy misses, 3) the systemic dominance of the Bhumjaithai government has ensured that there is little threat to the coalition, at least for now. In one year, we have seen the playbook for how Bhumjaithai has gained, managed, and protected its power.

On the day he was elected, I wrote: “Anutin has been widely praised for flying his own private jet in his spare time to deliver needed organs to the sick. As a prime minister navigating unprecedented circumstances, managing a minority government, it will take immense political skill for him not to fly too close to the sun.” Undeniably, as a skilled political operator, Anutin the party leader has played his cards very well in the first year of his premiership. But as the challenges of governing mount, whether Anutin the prime minister will be able to sustain the dominance of his party remains to be seen.

As the AI Passport is available only to Thai citizens, I thought that it may be useful to do walkthrough here of what features are available for the benefit of anyone interested in Thai AI policy but do not have direct access to the website. I have not spent a lot of time on testing out the features — unfortunately it’s a really busy stretch for me right now! — so this is more of a cursory glance than a rigorous test of all of its capabilities. I do hope that you find it useful.

The Interface

When you open the interface, the standard screen of an AI chatbot pops up. It defaults to Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite, which appears to be the only model with no usage limits imposed. (Gemini itself defaults to Gemini 3.6 Flash, so for the uninitiated who simply uses the interface without switching models, they would actually be using a worse version of Gemini than usual).

Pressing on the model gives you many, many other models to choose from. Some options that wouldn’t usually be available to free users include Gemini 3.1 Pro, Claude Opus 5, GPT 5.6 Sol, Sonar Reasoning Pro, and Nano Banana Pro. You also get access to Chinese models like Deepseek and Kimi, along with Thai language models like Pathumma.

Comparing models

One particularly neat feature that the AI Passport has is the ability to compare responses from different AI models. I asked both Gemini and Pathumma to tell me what policy Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul is prioritizing the most, for example, and you can see how differently the different AI models answer. (Worth noting here that Pathumma’s answer is more or less simply wrong; it says that Anutin has been prime minister since 2023 and then rattles policies he steered through as health minister from 2019 onwards, such as COVID management. Lots of work needed there for the native Thai model…).

The ability to compare different models in a single system is perhaps an underrated feature, because it gives you greater ease in fact-checking models. But then again, it’s not that much more convenient compared to simply opening multiple chatbots on different tabs and manually comparing the results.

“Genius Assistants”

You have the option to manually customize a “genius assistant” with your own settings and goals. There is also a marketplace of genius assistants, where you can look at some of the assistants that others have made. At the time of writing, the most popular assistants were a travel planning assistant, exam tutoring assistant, Excel coaching assistant, and a Tarot card reading assistant. Yeah, that last one sounded fun. I started talking to it and it told me to calmly pick three numbers between 1 to 78, and then it gave me some insight about my fortune. Definitely a good use-case for AI.

Learning about AI

One of the AI Passport’s stated goals is to increase Thais’ AI literacy. There are a number of AI courses that are available on the website, and indeed if you want to increase your number of credits, you can earn more by taking these courses. I tried signing up for an “Increasing Your Work Productivity with AI” course and a pre-test gave me a score of 9/10, so I guess I know how to be productive with AI! Unfortunately I didn’t dive too deep into the courses, because you are not allowed to skip through the videos.

Using the AI Passport for some basic tasks

There are some horror stories on social media about how the models in the AI Passport appears to have degraded performance compared to what would usually be available. After some light testing I’m not quite sure that this is true. As an example, I asked Nano Banana Pro to generate a graphic with a list of all Thai prime ministers. I also tried this in regular Gemini (I’m not a pro subscriber, however, so it’s not exactly an apples to apples comparison). The AI Passport version is not great — the Thai script is often butchered, and if you know who what these prime ministers looked like you will know that with some exceptions (like Thaksin and the six most recent prime ministers) these were simply not what the prime minister looked like. But the regular Gemini version is downright awful.

Free ChatGPT didn’t do a great job of the images, but at least it got the order and all the text right. Meanwhile, GPT-Image-2 in the AI Passport simply refused my request when I tried with the same prompt, twice in a row. So for this specific use case, the “pro” capabilities offered could not match the free features already available from another chatbot.

You can use the AI Passport to generate videos using Seedance’s various models, but you’re limited to 4 and 6 second videos at a quality of 480p. So, I’m not sure what the use case for this really would be, unless you simply want to generate something like a very short introductory clip for a slideshow. (There is also an option to use Veo 3.1 Fast, which doesn’t appear to have time limits, but when I asked for a ten second video, it still made me a four second video). I asked Seedance 2.0 Fast for a video of the evolution of Bangkok over the past two hundred years. I guess that it accomplished this task adequately, but it is such a short video that there isn’t much use one can get from it. (On the bright side, you do have access to Lyria 3 Pro, which can generate songs of up to three minutes).

I haven’t asked the AI Passport for any complicated coding tasks yet, but I did try something basic. I gave Claude Opus 5 a dataset on college football programs in America and asked it to generate a chart comparing football spending vs. win rates, highlighting my two teams, California and Michigan. It is the sort of task that Opus 5 should be way overpowered for, and it accomplished the task with ease. So that’s a positive! (Of course, this is not a good test of the AI Passport’s capabilities, simply that it isn’t completely unusable).

Snap verdict

After spending a brief amount of time with the AI Passport, here are some instant reactions.

The biggest question I have is: who, exactly, is the AI Passport is aimed at? There are limits, quite easily reached, to how much I can use some of the more advanced features; it appears the only non-limited model is Gemini Flash Lite. But people who truly need the “pro” features of AI are probably happy to pay AI providers for far higher limits than what the AI Passport can offer, and they will not want to spend time completing AI literacy courses in order to earn more credits. On the other hand, people who are truly new to AI probably don’t need the pro features. Anyone who simply wants to test out what AI can do will probably be satisfied with all the features that ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini can already offer on their free tiers.

The lack of agentic AI imposes a hard ceiling on its capabilities. The TH-AI Passport is strictly limited to generative AI, which is fine — DES never promised anything more than that, and there were probably too many risks with newer users trying to grapple with agentic AI anyway. But again, access to agentic AI is probably part of why many people want to pay for professional tools, and so without a tool like Claude Code, it is hard to say that we are truly getting at AI’s most powerful capabilities.

That said, some of the harsher criticisms about how the AI capabilities in the AI passport are significantly worse than what is available on the free tiers is, in my view, not quite true in all respects. However, if these tools are not clearly better than what is on offer for free by the tech companies by a significant margin, it is probably reasonable to ask whether or not this was a worthy investment. I do not know for sure what the limits of the capabilities are, given that I haven’t tried to ask for any particularly complicated tasks (although clearly the list of PMs was already a struggle!) But I expect that the opposition will continue to raise questions like this in the coming weeks and months, including at the no-confidence debate now expected towards the end of the year.

Good morning from The Coffee Parliament. There has been a lot going on, including a slew of prime ministerial activity on foreign policy. (Unbelievably, Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul’s visit to Indonesia in early August was the first by a Thai prime minister in 15 years; he also visited Australia and New Zealand, the first by a Thai PM in 14 and 13 years, respectively). We’re going to set aside analysis of the jet-setting for now, however, and take some time today to look at the most urgent controversy engulfing Thai politics: the Senate collusion case.

What exactly is this case about, again? In 2024, Thailand selected a new Senate using the procedures specified in the 2017 Constitution for the first time. This involved a very complicated process of self-selection amongst candidates, one that, as far as my knowledge of comparative political institutions goes, is not used anywhere else in the world. (If you are interested in the full details of how selection to the Senate works, Napon Jatusripitak has an excellent summary here).

Not very long after the Senate selection process concluded, allegations emerged that it had been dominated by “collusion” (Thai: hua sor wor), marked by coordinated bloc voting directed by partisan actors and bribery.1 If true, these actions would violate multiple laws, including Section 113 of the 2017 Constitution (which prohibits senators from acting under the influence of any political party)2 and multiple sections of the Organic Act on the Acquisition of Senators (translation available here). Legal petitions to the Electoral Commission (EC) has led to 138 incumbent senators being accused of involvement in collusive activities, along with 13 ministers and 17 Bhumjaithai MPs (including Anutin).

The EC will decide by September 14th whether or not it will forward the case to the Supreme Court. Hence the political temperature surrounding this case has been heating up. Activists have put pressure on the EC to take action, while Bhumjaithai threatened to take legal action against activists on what it views as defamation. The People’s Party politician Parit Wacharasindhu insisted that he believes the legal case to be airtight enough for the case to be forwarded, while Democrat leader Abhisit Vejjajiva upped the rhetoric by hypothetically asking whether Senate domination by a political party constitutes an attempt to overthrow the system of governance. Anutin as Bhumjaithai leader says, of course, that he and the government were not involved in any collusion.

Although Bhumjaithai has been facing increasing potential obstacles, so far the government has been largely stable. It is likely to sail through upcoming votes on the budget and a possible no confidence debate later this year, given the Bhumjaithai-Pheu Thai coalition’s majority in parliament. The Senate legal question thus represents the biggest question mark hanging over the Anutin government right now. If guilty verdicts are delivered on all of the accused, the government would become untenable in its current form, as violations of the law on Senate selection can result in a twenty-year ban from politics. It’s worth noting here, however, that the recently-passed Amnesty Bill may apply to the Senate collusion case, depending on how the case is classified.

But we are getting ahead of ourselves. The EC will first have to decide what to do, and Prachachat notes here that there are three possible outcomes. It could decide to forward the case on all implicated individuals. It could spare all of them. Or, it could recommend only some individuals to the court for legal action — and if this is the case we will have to see who the EC picks. (One particularly thorny dimension of this legal case is the fact that the Senate has the constitutional power to appoint members of various independent agencies, including the EC. BBC News Thai notes here that of the seven sitting commissioners, four were selected by the current Senate.)

No predictions from me on what the EC will decide, but as a busy political calendar arrives with the resumption of parliamentary business, this case will be one of many things we have to keep an eye on in the next few months.

Hi all, I wanted to send a brief update that I have a new ISEAS Perspective on the Bhumjaithai Party’s “technocratic shift” since Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul took power in September 2025.

In the piece, I discuss the origins for Bhumjaithai’s emphasis on technocratic appointments, which was a major rebrand for a party previously known as a locally-focused organization. I also explore the history of technocratic governance in Thailand and contrast how Bhumjaithai’s present arrangements are similar to or differ from previous cabinets in the past. And finally, I analyze whether the presence of key technocrats in the current Anutin cabinet can make a meaningful difference to the future trajectory of Thai development.

If this sounds interesting to you, the full piece is here!

Hi everyone. My apologies that it’s been a while since my last post — it’s been a very busy time for me. Unfortunately, it looks like this is how things will be for at least the next few months — so I’ll have to be a little selective in what I choose to cover on here!

Today I wanted to focus on an issue that has been flying a little under the radar in the English-language press: the Anutin Charnvirakul government’s plans to reduce the size of the Thai bureaucracy.

Of course, Bhumjaithai is a conservative party but not in the conventional Western sense — they’ve never really been advocates of small government (although, curiously, their 2019 election slogan was “Reduce State Power and Increase Peoples’ Power). So where is this impetus for making government smaller come from? Back in July, we discussed how many MPs noted that the state budget is largely consumed by routine spending and there is little money left over for government investment. The government is thus pushing a new bureaucratic reform initiative, spearheaded by Deputy Prime Minister Pakorn Nilprapunt, that will seek to reduce state expenditure on the bureaucracy.

Firstly, by 2032, the Thai government hopes to reduce the number of bureaucrats by 15 percent. (According to October 2025 data, there are approximately 3 million state employees in Thailand, composed of 1.7 million bureaucrats and 1.2 million other workers). The cabinet began by approving a plan to reduce state employees by abolishing several already-vacant civil servant positions and abolishing support positions that do not require a bureaucratic appointment.In the long term, Pakorn says that one important first step will be to push for voluntary early retirement, with the hope that these bureaucrats will then enter business “which will be good for the economy.” In the long term, the government hopes to take a look at the benefit system itself.

Secondly, as Money and Banking summarizes here, Pakorn is also seeking “to restructure public sector agencies by reducing the number of central and regional agencies by 10% by 2027, from the current 1,657 central agencies, 2,193 regional agencies, and 7,817 regional agencies.” According to The Nation, each ministry has three months to justify the continued operation of their provincial field offices, with Pakorn saying that bureaucrats whose positions are eliminated by restructuring may either seek to be transferred to central offices or take early retirement.1

These are significant steps that signal that the government is serious about reducing government expenditure. How likely is it for Pakorn’s schemes to succeed?

For one, there is disagreement about the policy specifics. Some experts such as TDRI’s Dr. Nonarit Bisonyabut are also pointing out that a sufficiently attractive early retirement scheme for employees needs to be well-designed or it may not actually result in worthwhile savings for the government, and that capable employees are more likely to accept early retirement for opportunities elsewhere, which means the Thai state could risk losing its best talent.

In addition, downsizing the bureaucracy will be a multi-year effort that requires sustained political attention and courage. Right now it looks like Pakorn has the full backing of the cabinet. However, the bureaucracy can be formidable player in their own right. One wonders whether making an enemy of entrenched bureaucratic actors will be adding to the headaches that the Bhumjaithai government is already facing, and if in the end a senior political figure in the government decides that Bhumjaithai cannot afford to bite more than it can chew. It’s worth noting that state employees are a sizable voting bloc, and while they obviously do not vote uniformly, no government wants to eliminate millions of potential supporters.

So the bottom line is: we’ll have to see whether Bhumjaithai has the political will to see this through. But unless the government can suddenly come up with new ideas on significantly increasing government revenue (quite unlikely), Thailand may not have many options if it seeks a sustainable future for the country’s finances. As Pakorn himself said, “If we don’t do this now, future generations will be in trouble. We must acknowledge reality.”

Something different today…a film recommendation!

Ask a Thai person of Chinese descent where their ancestors are from, and more often than not you will hear somewhere in the Teochew dialect-speaking Chaoshan region in Guangdong province. During the upheavals that overtook China from the late Qing Dynasty to the establishment of the People’s Republic, a wave of emigrants left Chaoshan to establish a new life in Southeast Asia, including Thailand. Today, over half of Thai-Chinese are Teochew in ancestral origin.

Despite the outsized influence of Teochew in Thailand, however, the dialect is relatively obscure in China. One estimate says that only about 14 million people in Chaoshan speak the language natively1 — in a country of 1.4 billion people. The city of Shantou, from where many Thais can trace their roots, is the poorest-performing of the three original special economic zones, with its dialect isolating it from the rest of the country. So it was a surprise when Dear You, a film made in Teochew, became one of China’s biggest hits this year. As CGTN said, for a Teochew film to experience this level of success was “unprecedented.” By June, it had become China’s second-biggest hit this year, grossing almost 2 billion yuan despite being made on a budget of just 14 million yuan and featuring a largely unknown cast of non-professional actors.

Dear You is reminiscent of the success of How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies2 (which I wrote about here last year). But unlike the latter, which follows the story of later generations of Thai Chinese who have become firmly established in Bangkok, the former focuses on the struggles of first-generation Teochew immigrants who just freshly arrived from China.

The film is about Den Bhagseng, a Teochew immigrant in Siam who fled conscription during the Chinese Civil War to try to make a new life in Bangkok’s Chinatown, but uses letters to keep in touch with his wife Sogriu in China. Today Shantou and Bangkok are easily connected by flight; back then it was an arduous journey by sea. Not quite The Odyssey, perhaps, and certainly no cyclopes are waiting. But enough to make constant travel back and forth unfeasible. Viewers are thus introduced to the qiaopi, letters and remittances from overseas Chinese sent back to families left behind in China. At a time when Chinese immigrants often arrived in Siam with just, as the traditional saying goes, “a mat and a pillow,” they worked hard to send money back to their families in Chaoshan.

I think that Dear You is a film that feels special in Thailand because it feels like taking a time machine. You can read books about the exodus from China during its century of humiliation, of course — Jeffrey Sng and Pimpraphai Bisalputra’s A History of the Thai-Chinese was just recently translated into Thai — yet there is something different about seeing it played out on the big screen. It appears that this film is especially emotionally resonant to the older generation who still remembers their parents or grandparents sending qiaopi. For a younger generation of Thai-Chinese, this part of the family history is now largely forgotten, but at least in this film it has been brought back to life. And for many, it is the first time they may have watched a Teochew film (although even older people in Thailand who still understand some Teochew were unable to understand the Teochew spoken by the Chinese actors — Thais’ Teochew having been frozen in time while Teochew in Chaoshan evolved!)

But Dear You also poses interesting questions of identity. Outside of Thailand, the film has become politically charged. It sparked controversy in Singapore, where a decades-long government campaign to push aside Chinese dialects in favor of Mandarin led the limiting of screenings of the film in Teochew. This was not a popular decision. Singaporeans argued that the dialects had already been marginalized to the point where they pose little threat to the ability to acquire Mandarin; one professor told the BBC the uproar felt like “grieving a loss” of ancestral dialects.

It is a comment that makes me think of Thailand, where the of Chinese dialects has become far more complete that strangely enough limits this sense of loss. After all, you cannot lose what you never really had. I personally know of not even a single person in their 20s who can understand or speak Teochew with any fluency. No, that ability virtually declined significantly a generation previously, one long-term consequence of Field Marshal Plaek Phibunsongkram having closed down Chinese schools in the 1930s, and among my generation is essentially extinct. Today, anyone who wants to study the Chinese language today will do so in Mandarin — although of course, few of the ancestors of most Thai-Chinese spoke Mandarin.

A writer in Singapore’s Chinese-language newspaper Lianhe Zaobao had called the film a “United Front” film.3 (Predictably, this claim drew criticism from mainland Chinese papers). But Thailand probably has the most well-assimilated community of overseas Chinese anywhere in the world, all of its members having long ago prioritized the Thai identity and scarcely identifying as anything more than culturally Chinese in some sense. Ironically, then, the fact that Thailand’s nation-building project has been so successful in assimilating the Thai-Chinese means that Dear You can pose little danger. It is for Thais more a window to historical discovery than the catalyst for any awakening of a latent identity that threatens to overcome the primary national one.

If you are Thai-Chinese and are interested in the stories of ancestral origins that is quickly receding into an unreachable past, this film is worth a watch. And even if you are not, but have any curiosity in the roots of a significant segment of the Thailand’s citizenry, Dear You would be worth your time.

The origins of the potential fissure in the Bhumjaithai government lies in its decision to exclude the Kla Tham Party from the coalition, which has left its former ally out in the wilderness over the past few months. Kla Tham has done a remarkable job at keeping its MPs loyal — there has been no defections from a party that unexpectedly found itself in opposition despite what everyone thought was a sure path back to government — and as a result remains a significant political force in parliament, even if it has largely kept quiet over the past few months. This means that it could remain an important political actor, either as an alternative ally for Bhumjaithai or a supporter of an alternative coalition.

But up to this point, an alternative coalition seemed impossible. As I noted in my last post, an agreement by Pheu Thai (74 seats) and Kla Tham (58 seats) to topple Bhumjaithai (191 seats) is unworkable because that would be far off from a parliamentary majority without the People’s Party (120 seats). The People’s Party pledged during the election campaign that it would not form a government with Kla Tham, of course, which would mean that it is virtually impossible for any alternative government excluding Bhumjaithai to emerge, unless the PP is willing to form another confidence and supply agreement — and one would think that the party was sufficiently burned by its last attempt.

Such was the situation until the People’s Party deputy leader Sirikanya Tansakun gave an interview on coalition configurations this week. While she ruled out any future deal with Bhumjaithai, when asked about a red-green coalition, she signaled that the party would be open to such discussions, given that without the People’s Party the “political equation would be incomplete.” When Thammanat was asked about Sirikanya’s remarks, he said that he has now “forgotten everything that happened before the election” (a reference to the PP’s anti-Kla Tham pledge). “Before the election, people who were enemies and still come back and love each other.”

Of course, Thammanat denied that an alternative coalition is currently in the making, saying that he wants to give an opportunity for the elected government to work first, and only if “one day they can no longer proceed” should “discussions” happen. Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul has also moved quickly to try to squash these talks of an alternative coalition, publicly hugging Pheu Thai leader Julaphun Amornvivat.1 When reporters said that there may be a new mix of red, green, and orange, Anutin joked that red and green should be mixed with condensed milk.2

Undoubtedly, talks of an alternative coalition forming is premature. Pheu Thai does not seem like it has any appetite for risk right now, fresh from a bruising electoral fiasco and Thaksin only recently having been released from prison. The People’s Party is already being warned that should the party go back on its promise not to partner with Kla Tham, its brand would suffer even further. And Kla Tham seems content, for now, to telegraph its desire for friendship to all political parties, in order to keep its options open. All in all, I maintain my assessment that there is still no grave immediate risk to Bhumjaithai, and while a cabinet reshuffle may be headed our way at some point, the government is not yet at any risk of falling.

But the fact that an alternative “traffic light coalition” is even remotely possible certainly adds a level of political pressure on Bhumjaithai.3 Up until this point, the “purple coalition” of Bhumjaithai and Pheu Thai (plus other minor parties) has been the only viable configuration because of commitments by the People’s Party and the Democrats that they will not work with Kla Tham. This meant that Bhumjaithai held all the cards over its coalition partners; there was no real alternative and any threat to leave the government was not truly credible. Now, however, public signals that these commitments are not so set in stone as to be unbreakable means Bhumjaithai will need to work harder to keep its coalition partners satisfied.

Good morning from The Coffee Parliament. My apologies that there was no newsletter last week; it’s been a bit of a busy period for me! Today we’ll take a look at the cancellation of the Land Bridge project in southern Thailand and some rumors about the state of the government coalition.

Land Bridge to nowhere?

Because this update is being sent out late, you probably have already heard that Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Ekniti Nitithanpraphas announced the termination of the Land Bridge project. We’ve been discussing the Land Bridge for a few months now, and up until Ekniti’s announcement government figures from Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul down have seemed pretty resolute in their public commitments to make this happen. But according to Ekniti, feasibility studies have shown that the project requires too expensive an investment, involves risks too high, and will cause too much environmental damage.

Anutin himself threw in a curveball, however, by saying that the government has not given up on the Land Bridge: if the need arises or the geopolitical situation demands it, they can simply dust the plan and bring it back. What is clear is that the government will still look to make some form of infrastructural upgrade to southern Thailand’s connectivity. Ekniti said that the government will instead be prioritizing a project called the “Missing Link,” where an existing sea port in Ranong province will be upgraded and connected to Chumphon province with a railway line.

Hmm, doesn’t that sound familiar? Critics, as this Bangkok Post editorial notes, argue that “the Missing Link appears to be little more than a scaled-down version of the Land Bridge.” The opposition parties are looking at this new project with scrutiny, with Democrat Party leader Abhisit Vejjajiva proposing a Songkhla to Penang route instead. But Tita Sanglee at The Diplomat argues that this project “makes structural sense” (her piece is worth reading in full as it is a great summary of the land bridge situation). There is guaranteed to be plenty of debate on whether or not the Missing Link is a better alternative to the Land Bridge.

Coalition rumors

The Kla Tham Party has been quiet since the general election, after it was denied an opportunity to join the Bhumjaithai-led government coalition. But the party leader Captain Thammanat Promphao broke his relative silence to deny online rumors that he recently met former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra in Monaco to discuss a change in prime minister. Thammanat said that while it is true that he has visited Monaco, it was a trip with his family; if anyone checked Thaksin’s traveling record they would know he had not visited Monaco. “There is no Monaco deal,” he said. Anutin laughed off these rumors, responding that “red and green mixing together would still yield dark blue.” Meanwhile, former prime minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra also posted on Instagram: “I’m here on vacation to relax. No secret deal. The only deal is the deal with my children.”

The rumors of a Pheu Thai - Kla Tham deal is strange because it would be impossible for the two parties to form a viable coalition together without including either Bhumjaithai or the People’s Party. It is still far more likely, in my view, that Kla Tham is being kept in reserve so that, in the event of a breakdown in relations between Bhumjaithai and Pheu Thai, Anutin has an alternative coalition partner he can turn to (which would produce a slim but workable government majority).

What I find more interesting are the continual rumors that there is infighting within the Bhumjaithai Party, which would be a more immediate threat to the coalition’s stability. (We covered some sources of tension within the Bhumjaithai government here a few weeks ago). Anutin has sought to dispel rumors that there is conflict between the “2 Ns” (Nhu aka Anutin’s nickname and Newin Chidchob) and “1 P” (Deputy Prime Minister Phiphat Ratchakitprakarn) by posting a picture together. “#NNP relations are as ruptured as a Crème Brûlée,” he wrote on Facebook. (Someone tell me what that means — I can’t keep up!)

Where there is no fire, of course, there shouldn’t be any smoke — so we’ll have to keep our eyes on this front.

Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul has had a busy trip to China, which I wrote about earlier this week. That post came out before a rather melodious end to Anutin’s visit, which has surprisingly overshadowed coverage of his entire trip.

The prime minister has become well known for his musical diplomacy, whether it be playing traditional instruments in Vietnam or playing the saxophone while Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim sings “My Way.” In his latest performance, Anutin serenaded Chinese Premier Li Qiang with the song “Tian Mi Mi” (甜蜜蜜, “Sweet as Honey”). Tian Mi Mi is one of the most famous songs in the Chinese language. Sung by Teresa Teng (Deng Lijun), the lyrics are simple and innocent, comparing a smile to the sweetness of honey and a flower that blooms in spring.

The controversy erupted when Russ Jalichandra, a former vice foreign minister under Paetongtarn Shinawatra who runs the “Alternative Ambassador” Facebook page, commented that Anutin’s choice of singing Tian Mi Mi was inappropriate because it was composed by a Taiwanese singer. “I remember that twenty years ago, a Chinese deputy premier visited Thailand and Thais wanted to please him by playing famous Chinese songs at a banquet. However, they were Taiwanese songs, including Tian Mi Mi. It turned out that after a while, the deputy premier left the room.” Other media channels and netizens pointed out that the song was once banned in China. The 101World Facebook page wrote simply: “Tian Mi Mi, a Taiwanese song originating from Indonesia, once banned by China (but sung by Anutin in China).”

Some critics have taken issue less with the song and more with the act of singing itself. The China expert Kornkit Disathan wrote a lengthy post on the history of Tian Mi Mi, noting that Teresa Teng’s songs were banned in China because it was considered “yellow music” (degenerate songs focused on romance). Kornkit noted, however, that the ban has long been lifted, and massive Teresa Teng-inspired concerts have been held in mainland China over the past few decades. Kornkit withheld judgement on whether or not singing Tian Mi Mi in the presence of Chinese officials would cause political issues, but commented that Chinese diplomatic meetings are usually serious affairs (unlike the more lighthearted tone of ASEAN leaders) and that he felt a sense of “cringe” watching Anutin’s performance.

Teresa Teng was indeed a noted pro-Kuomintang singer who allowed her voice to be used in propaganda broadcasts. In the documentary Island In Between, made in 2024, Taiwan was still broadcasting Tian Mi Mi on its propaganda speakers! But I think that Russ overstates the antipathy that China’s leaders have towards both the song and the singer. It is documented that even Chinese leaders enjoy listening to Teresa Teng. Joseph Torigian wrote about Xi Jinping’s admiration of Teresa Teng in his recent biography of Xi’s father, Xi Zhongxun. “To relax,” Torigina writes, “he listened to the romantic, decidedly nonrevolutionary musician Teresa Teng…[Xi] Jinping listened to Teresa Teng’s “Small Town Story” so often that the recording broke.”

Ultimately, the criticism appears to be overstated. In the video clip, it appears that it was the Chinese side which invited Anutin to perform a rendition of Tian Mi Mi, so it can hardly give offense if Anutin was simply responding to a request by his hosts. (The government confirmed that the prime minister was invited by the Chinese side to sing).

Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sihasak Phuangketkeow wants to close a chapter on this controversy, far less sweet than honey as it is. As Khaosod English wrote, he “urged the public not to politicize Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul's performance…saying it was simply a popular tune enjoyed by generations.” The Chinese band would not have performed the song if it was sensitive, Sihasak argued; the public should not let this episode of musical diplomacy overshadow Anutin’s successful trip.

The criticism does appear to have touched a nerve with the government, however. Government deputy spokesperson Ratchada Dhanadhirek posted: “This song is a hit song. Wherever it is sung, people there smile, except in the hearts of some people.” Meanwhile, Anutin himself posted King Rama VI’s adaptation of a verse written by William Shakespeare in The Merchant of Venice. The following is the original English verse (note that the translation does not fully match up):

The man that hath no music in himself,
Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds,
Is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils;
The motions of his spirit are dull as night

Sharp words, certainly. Perhaps Anutin should also have reached for Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing.

This episode will blow over in the next few days. But it is perhaps a sign that Anutin’s freewheeling musical diplomacy, up until this point seen as at worst harmless fun and at best a way for the prime minister to improve personal ties with foreign leaders, has come under greater scrutiny. Anutin’s fun-driven personality has helped him come across as more approachable than previous conservative leaders, and it remains to be seen whether that persona will survive contact with criticism.

Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul made an official visit to China from July 16 to July 20. Although Anutin previously visited China when he accompanied His Majesty the King on his state visit last year, this was Anutin’s first official visit as prime minister.

I’ve summarized some of the interesting takeaways from this trip here.

AI takes center stage

Anutin attended China’s 2026 World AI Conference, where Xi urged that AI development “not be a solo performance by a single country, but a symphony of international cooperation.” As Brookings fellow Kyle Chan summarizes, China (which has championed open-source AI development) is contrasting America’s “closed system where power and profits flow back to American corporations” with China’s “open system where everyone, including the Global South, can participate and benefit.” In other words: “the US is Apple and China is Android.”

Interestingly, it doesn’t appear that Thailand actually provided a full endorsement of Xi’s vision on AI. For his part, Anutin gave a rather anodyne speech where he called for AI cooperation based on the principles of “Protection, Potential, and Prosperity.”1 Most interestingly, Thailand was not among the 29 countries that signed the agreement to create a World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organization as proposed by Xi. I am not still not sure how to square this; Anutin was clearly one of the guests of honor at China’s AI summit, but for some reason Beijing was willing to tolerate Thailand’s decision not yet to become a full-fledged member of the WAICO.

The Cambodian subtext

Cambodia did feature in the discussions between Anutin and Xi, however, with Xi offering to facilitate further talks between the two countries. Xi also proposed holding the next Mekong-Lancang Cooperation summit in China rather than Thailand if Cambodia is reluctant to attend talks held in Thailand. Most importantly for domestic Thai perceptions, Xi apparently assured Anutin that tanks and weaponry that China has sold to Cambodia cannot be used to harm Thailand, and that a new shipment of tanks has been delayed. The FC Anutin Facebook page wrote: “On security, China gave us their word that Cambodian tanks cannot be used against Thailand. This is satisfactory.”2 The Chinese defense minister is due to visit Thailand this week, so security discussions between the two countries are expected to continue.

I saw Thais online noting the fact that in the group photo at the summit, Anutin stood next to Xi, while Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet stood slightly further away. I would not automatically read too much into this, however, as there is always a lot of diplomatic protocol that goes into the arrangements of these family photos.

“Quality Chinese capital”

During the visit, Anutin also spent a lot of time visiting Chinese tech firms. The FC Anutin Facebook page posted on July 19:

Many people might view Prime Minister and Minister of Interior Anutin Charnvirakul’s official visit to Chengdu on July 18, 2026, as merely a roadshow to invite Chinese investors to Thailand.

However, looking deeper reveals that this is a crucial strategy aimed at transforming the structure of the Thai economy—shifting it from a “traditional manufacturing base” to a global “advanced technology industrial hub.”

On this trip, Mr. Anutin led the Thai economic team…in discussions with executives from leading Chinese tech companies. These included Xiaomi, ChangAn Automobile, Innolight Technology, and Eoptolink Technology, all of which are leaders in the electric vehicle (EV), AI, data center, and digital infrastructure industries.

What the Thai government is pursuing is not simply bringing in “Chinese capital,” but selectively attracting “high-quality Chinese capital.” This approach ensures that investments come accompanied by technology, research and development (R&D), innovation, knowledge transfer, and workforce development for the Thai people—as these elements form the core of competitiveness in the modern global economy.

The usage of the term “high quality Chinese capital” is important because it contrasts with a word that has been in common Thai parlance recently: “gray Chinese,” referring to businesses operating with ambiguous legality (or outright illegality). This term has become controversial, with the Chinese ambassador to Thailand recently arguing that most Chinese businesses operating in Thailand do observe the law. This makes it interesting that Anutin is using this moment to show that his government is prioritizing “quality investments.” It helps him accomplish both domestic goals (showing that he is focused on drawing in new investment that will help boost Thailand’s industrial growth) and foreign policy goals (signaling that Thais are focused not just on China’s illicit industries but also its high-tech firms).

“One Family”

In the official Chinese readout of the Anutin-Xi meeting, Xi stuck to many of the themes that he conveyed to former prime minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra when she visited last year, calling for an “acceleration of the construction of the Thai-China railway”3 and continuing to “vigorously combat cross-border crimes such as online gambling and telecom fraud.” It is a reminder that there are still areas of concern within the bilateral relationship. Xi did repeat his line that Chinese and Thai friendship has stretched unbroken for a thousand years and “becomes more resolute with the passing of time.”

Anutin has been keen to emphasize the closeness of ties between the two countries. On his personal Facebook page, Anutin posted a photo of himself and multiple members of the cabinet with Xi Jinping and Foreign Minister Wang Yi, complete with the caption: “中泰一家亲” (China and Thailand are one family). He also added hashtags of Xi Jinping’s name and his own Chinese name, Chen Xiyao.4 (Anutin is a fluent Chinese speaker). Xi, in the readout, also used this phrase, as has become standard for Chinese leaders in discussions with Thai government officials.

All in all, a busy trip for the prime minister — one that will give us much food for thought about Thailand-China ties.

Good morning from The Coffee Parliament. Last week was exceptionally busy in Thai politics and so I felt that a Morning Coffee Briefing is in order.

In today’s newsletter:

1. Parliament passes a bill granting amnesty to people facing cases stemming from political conflict over the past two decades

2. The Constitutional Court rules that the government’s emergency degree is legitimate

3. Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul visits Malaysia, while the Shinawatra premiers visit Indonesia

1. Parliament passes Amnesty Bill

Over a decade ago, the Yingluck Shinawatra government attempted to pass an amnesty bill for those with legal cases stemming from the color-coded political conflicts of the 2000s. It proved so controversial that the bill (which failed to pass) became the main trigger for mass protests against the Pheu Thai Party. This past week, a new amnesty bill (now called the Peaceful Society Promotion Bill) sailed through parliament with relatively little fanfare.

The Peaceful Society Promotion Bill will provide amnesty for Thai citizens who were or are being prosecuted for legal cases stemming from the yellow shirt protests, red shirt protests, People’s Democratic Reform Committee (PDRC) protests, anti-coup protests, and the 2020-21 youth protests. This covers around 6,000 people. There are some major omissions, however. For one, it does not cover civil lawsuits (and as the Bangkok Post points out, yellow shirt leaders billed for their airport closure in 2008 will not become exempt from paying compensation). It does not cover those convicted of corruption.1 And finally, it does not provide amnesty for lèse-majesté cases.

This third point has proved to be a major point of controversy, with the People’s Party coming out against the bill because of is omission of lèse-majesté convicts. Pheu Thai MP Thongthai Wechayachai argued that “this draft is the furthest step that Thai society today can collectively accept.” The Democrat Party, on the other hand, pointed out that the Senate added a clause allowing amnesty to be extended to those convicted of wrongdoing regarding the Senate elections. All in all, the bill passed by a vote of 306 to 141 with a number of MPs who would be direct beneficiaries of amnesty declining to vote.

2. Constitutional Court rules that loan decree is legal

In May, the Cabinet green-lighted borrowing 400 billion baht “to ease impacts on people’s living costs caused by the energy crisis and to support the restructuring of Thailand’s energy sector.” Thai law requires that an emergency borrowing decree can only be made when there is “an emergency of necessity and urgency which is unavoidable,” and the opposition parties quickly petitioned the Constitutional Court to rule on whether or not there is an emergency of sufficient magnitude to warrant using this mechanism.

On July 9, the Constitutional Court delivered its ruling. In a unanimous ruling, the Court said that using the loan funds to alleviate cost pressures for the people is lawful. In a 7 to 2 ruling, the Court also found that using the funds to facilitate Thailand’s transition to renewable energy is also lawful. Given that this ruling was the biggest legal question hanging over the Bhumjaithai government, ministers will be relieved to have the Constitutional Court clear one of their biggest economic initiatives to date.

The ruling does leave long-term implications, however. Thammasat University professor Supreeya Kaewla-iad pointed out, for example, that this ruling may pave the way for future fiscal indiscipline, as interpretations of what is meant by “preserving the economic security of the country” may become so wide as to decrease in meaning. It may also encourage future governments to use the emergency decree mechanism to avoid legislative oversight on borrowing.

3. Prime Minister(s) visit maritime Southeast Asia

Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul visited Malaysia from 9 to 10 July to resolve a seafood spat. As Channel News Asia summarizes, “Thailand restricted the import of Malaysian-caught sea bass due to concerns over chemical residues, prompting Kuala Lumpur to temporarily ban some varieties of Thai shrimp over food safety controls last month.” Anutin and Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim also opened a new border crossing in Songkhla province. Most memorably, Anutin and Anwar had an episode of musical bonhomie.

At the same time, Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto met with not one but three former Thai prime ministers: Thaksin Shinawatra, Yingluck Shinawatra, and Paetongtarn Shinawatra. Thaksin is an advisor to Danantara, an Indonesian sovereign wealth fund. This is one of Thaksin’s most visible public engagements since he was released from prison in early May.

In a strange coincidence, Anutin’s Facebook account shared a post from a Pheu Thai fanclub page on rumors that Thaksin had helped Agricultural Minister Suriya Juangroongrueangkit resolve the shrimp issue with Malaysia. Anutin later posted: “Sorry, I accidentally pressed ‘share.’ That was unintentional. Thank you to the reporter who called me and let me know.” Make of that what you will…

Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul’s second term so far has felt like one hundred days of quietude.

This state of affairs is not usual in Thai politics, especially under elected governments. For the first time this century, we have a pro-establishment government led by a political party that is clearly dominant in their own coalition. As far as we can tell, this government maintains friendly ties with other potential veto players in the political system, including the Senate and the military. The prime minister is neither beloved nor detested; in short, he is not the sort of polarizing figure who drives people to the streets in fury. If there was a government that seems likely to complete its term in office, this one would be it.

But are things genuinely as stable as it seems? There are some recent reports that the beneath the calm surface, the government is beginning to face increasing headwinds. In today’s newsletter, I want to take a look at some of the potential flashpoints facing the Anutin government.

Declining popularity

Bhumjaithai is fresh from an election victory, but new data suggests that public polling is already declining. The latest NIDA quarterly poll pointed to an almost 8% decline in the number of Anutin’s supporters, and 9% decline in the number of Bhumjaithai supporters. This is only one poll, but that is a pretty significant shift that Bhumjaithai will certainly flag as alarming.

As a NationWeekend analysis wrote, the Anutin government has faced several PR issues in its first three months, including controversy over its initial handling of the energy crisis, debate over its AI scheme, and perception of underperformance from some cabinet ministers. Another potential issue is the fact that the government contains many relatively inexperienced cabinet ministers (such as the “lookthep faction”)1. The cabinet’s most popular figure, commerce minister Supajee Suthumpun (who played a star role in the Bhumjaithai election campaign), has significantly cut back her media visibility, to the point where her Facebook page has had to explain that “Supajee has not disappeared, she is working.” Anutin recently threatened that ministers which “the world has forgotten about” (i.e. has no discernable accomplishments) will also be “forgotten by the prime minister” (i.e. reshuffled out of the cabinet). The prime minister also acknowledged that the government has not been effectively communicating its work to the people.

The saving grace is that the People’s Party has proved completely unable to capitalize on the government’s dipping popularity, with both leader of the opposition Natthaphong Rueangpanyawut and the party declining slightly as well in approval. It was instead Pheu Thai and the Democrat Party that made some modest gains. Given that it is still so early in the parliamentary term, a fall in just one poll will not be sufficient to trigger Bhumjaithai panic yet. As May Wong wrote in the Strait Times, “Regardless of the Anutin administration’s shortcomings, many voters may be willing to overlook them for now. Political stability may matter more than ambitious reform.” But if the decline in support continues, it will certainly be a data point that the government cannot ignore.

Bhumjaithai Infighting

Unlike in previous governments, there are also virtually no reports of intra-coalition infighting. The only player sizable enough to actually destabilize Bhumjaithai is Pheu Thai — with the coalition having 294 MPs, if Pheu Thai’s 74 MPs were to withdraw the government would be at immediate risk of falling. But Bhumjaithai is helped by a curious parliamentary dynamic: Kla Tham (with 58 MPs) remains in the opposition. Bhumjaithai recently sent Kla Tham a signal of friendship, and it is highly possible that should Pheu Thai turn into a rebellious actor, Anutin could turn to Kla Tham as a backup option. Hence why this coalition is stable.

But although infighting across parties within the coalition has been limited, we are seeing signs that all is not well inside Bhumjaithai itself. The biggest flashpoint appears to be tensions between the prime minister and his deputy prime minister and transport minister, Phiphat Ratchakitprakarn. In the middle of June, Phiphat was removed from his role overseeing the Eastern Economic Corridor, a move that appeared to be a surprise to Phiphat himself. (As Phiphat noted, he only found out about his removal when the order was read out at a cabinet meeting). This led to immediate speculation of a wider conflict between what has been dubed “two Ns and one P” — the Ns being Newin Chidchob and Anutin (nickname “Nhoo”) and the P being Phiphat. Phiphat, for his part, has denied these claims, arguing that Newin is not involved in the country’s administration.

The rapture between the prime minister and the deputy prime minister does not appear to be wide enough to threaten the government yet. It is worth noting, however, that Phiphat as leader of the party’s election campaign in the south was instrumental to producing the Bhumjaithai victory, and he is not someone that Anutin can easily afford to alienate. This flashpoint will be worth watching in the months to come.

Rumors of the prime minister’s replacement

The government so far has been in a legally sound spot — very important given Thailand’s recent history of judicial defenestrations of prime ministers. But the most immediate threat to the government is an upcoming Constitutional Court ruling on July 9 on the legality of its emergency borrowing decree. If the court issues a negative opinion, it is possible that there may have to be some ministerial resignations to take responsibility. I have seen some speculation that this could trigger a dissolution of parliament, but personally I doubt that things will go that far.

Recently, rumors began to float in the media that a backup has been prepared in the event that Anutin has to resign. The backup prime minister, reports stated, has a name starting with an “S.” On the surface that sounds obvious: Bhumjaithai’s second candidate for prime minister is Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sihasak Phuangketkeow. But there are multiple “S” letters in Thai, and this particular “S” (ศ) is not how “Sihasak” (ส) is spelled. The only eligible candidate for prime minister whose name starts with the right “S” is People’s Party deputy leader Sirikanya Tansakun, who quickly denied that there are any deals being made for her to become prime minister. Bhumjaithai, for their part, have denied that there are any plans to replace Anutin with an outsider prime minister.

So what to make of these rumors? It is probably no coincidence that such a report would be floated at a moment when the Bhumjaithai government, as strong as it is, is suddenly facing some headwinds, in the form of declining popularity, party infighting, and a legal challenge. Still, talk of an imminent collapse of the government is probably premature. Making predictions is an easy way for a Thai political analyst to look foolish very quickly, but if you pushed me to say whether this government completes its term, I would still say at the moment the odds favor that scenario. Fundamentally, Anutin and his party still remain in as unassailable a position as we have seen in the past three decades of electoral politics. There are signs of trouble, but Thai governments have easily survived worse.

The FY2027 budget proposed by Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul has passed its first reading in parliament, with 288 MPs voting in favor and 119 voting against. Here are some of the highlights of the parliamentary debate on the budget.

Ekniti defends government budget 2027 budget

Anutin was accompanying His Majesty King Maha Vajiralongkorn on his visit to France, so Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Ekniti Nitithanpraphas made the opening and closing speeches on the budget debate. His opening speech can be found here, and a summary of his closing speech can be found here.

Ekniti summarized the budget as follows:

The draft Annual Appropriations Bill for Fiscal Year 2027 sets a total budget cap of 3,788,000 million Baht, which can be categorized as follows:

• Current expenditure: 2,786,367.1 million Baht (or 73.6%)

• Treasury reserves compensation: 71,038.1 million Baht (or 1.9%)

• Capital expenditure: 789,171.5 million Baht (or 20.8%)

• Principal debt repayment: 151,520 million Baht (or 4.0%)

10.7% of the budget is allocated for national security, 9.2% for building competitiveness, 16.1% for developing human capital, 25.4% for creating opportunities and social equality, 3.6% for quality of life and the environment, and 17.9% for balancing and developing systems for government administration. 17.1% is placed in emergency reserves

In his speeches, the finance minister mounted a spirited defense of the budget that he has proposed. The goverment’s economic goal, Ekniti said, was to push Thailand into one of the top twenty most competitive countries globally in four years, return GDP growth to 3% annually, and push for Thailand to become a high-income country within 12 years.1 Ekniti noted that last year, the budget deficit amounted to 4.4% of GDP, and the Bhumjaithai government will reduce this deficit to 3.9% of GDP in order to rebuild fiscal credibility. By 2029, the government hopes to reduce this deficit to under 3%.

Ekniti also noted that although it appears that the budget for government investment had decreased by 70 billion baht, the government has in fact simply shifted its method of mobilizing capital through alternative tools, such as state enterprise investment budgets, and Board of Investment incentives and deregulation to attract investment. Overall, Ekniti said: “For the FY 2027 budget, the government will move away from its old practice of under-budgeting or hiding current expenditures—tactics that forced them to draw from treasury reserves later on. Instead, they will bring these vulnerabilities out into the open so that the problems can be targeted and solved directly."

The opposition’s response

All of the major opposition parties roundly criticized the government’s proposed budget.

Leader of the opposition and People’s Party leader Nattaphong Rueangpanyawut slammed the budget as “a budget that comes from the taxes of all Thais, but will not help Thais and instead will help those who are the pillars of the dark blue government.” Meanwhile, deputy leader Sirikanya Tansakun said Thailand’s economic issues are akin to “an abscess that has burst” and without a change to how the government approaches budgeting, the budget deficit will not decrease and new projects will become impossible.

The Democrat Party zeroed in on how the proposed budget is a “budget where we cannot see a future.” Party leader Abhisit Vejjajiva argued that virtually the entire investment budget this year comes from deficit spending or loans, which means that the national income is taken up entirely by routine spending and debt repayments. The tax-to-GDP ratio stands at 14.6%, Abhisit said, which is the lowest in history. He thus called for comprehensive tax reform. Deputy leader Korn Chatikavanij echoed Abhisit’s call for tax reform and also pointed out that the government’s goal of taking Thailand to high-income status in 12 years and becoming an OECD member in 2028 is likely impossible, as that would require investing at least 30% of the budget, but Thailand is barely able to invest even 20%.

Multiple MPs zeroed in on the government’s AI budget. Sirikanya noted that “any project with AI in the name or is related to AI received a substantial budget increase,” with the overall AI-related budget doubling. However, there does not appear to be a government strategy on AI, as different agencies are making their own procurement orders. Democrat deputy leader Karndee Leopairote said that although 90% of the AI-related projects are supposedly marked for investment, detailed scrutiny revealed that portions of this budget is actually being spent on building classrooms and even “AI buildings.”

People’s Party deputy leader Veerayooth Kanchoochat criticized the government’s industrial policy, arguing that the government appears to have a “fear of missing out” and is addicted to glamour, seeking foreign investment without truly building internal industrial strength. Focusing on the automobile industry, Veerayooth noted that most of the budget is focused on subsidies for EV producers, with little remaining for infrastructure building, testing centers, and workforce skill development.

Kla Tham joined in criticism of the budget. Kla Tham MP Pakpoom Boonpramook, for example, said that the area-based budgets for provinces and provincial groups had been reduced by 83 percent, which does not look like a normal budget reduction but is instead an attempt to remake devolution of budgetary power.

The biggest fireworks during the debate came when Democrat MP Jury Numkaew (who represents Hat Yai city, which suffered from a major flood last year) said that the government was allocating insufficient funds to disaster prevention. This prompted an angry response from deputy interior minister Jeseth Thaiseth, who accused Jury of not reading the budget carefully enough and suggested that the Democrats appoint him to the budget committee so he would have an opportunity to study the budget further. He was particularly incensed that Jury had said that he needed to light incense to summon a minister to reply to his question. Abhisit came to the assistance of his fellow Democrat MP, suggesting that Jury continue lighting incense until someone could give a proper answer on why there were very little funds for flood prevention in Hat Yai.

What next?

The budget will still need to pass its second and third readings. In the meantime, the cabinet and the major political parties have appointed a 72-member special committee to scrutinize the proposed budget. Particularly noteworthy members include Veera Theerapat, a famous news host who joined previous budget committees under the People’s Party quota but this year has switched to the government quota, Chaiwat Sathawornwichit (the recently defeated People’s Party Bangkok governor candidate), and Watanya Bunnag or “Madam Dear” (previously a Democrat Party politician who faded away from politics after she was refused permission to run in the 2023 party leadership race).

Chadchart Sittipunt wins a landslide victory in the governor’s race

This was one of the most predictable elections in recent Thai history. As we discussed previously in this newsletter, the incumbent governor Chadchart Sittipunt was virtually a lock to win re-election. He did so with ease. Defying a late push from his opponents to investigate internal practices within his administration, Chadchart won around 1.4 million votes (roughly 65 percent of the vote) at the time of writing with 95 percent of the vote counted. He beat his 2022 result both in terms of the vote share and in the raw vote count. It is an enormous personal mandate.

Why did Chadchart win in such a landslide? Satisfaction with his tenure so far, for one. Buy-in for his non-partisan image, as the governor successfully shed his previous Pheu Thai affiliation. Chadchart’s bet that a bigger focus on the “capillaries” of the capital rather than large megaprojects, especially paying attention to daily complaints filed by residents in the Traffy Fondue platform, has also paid off.

The scale of his victory also has much to due with the fact that he faced a field of candidates with relatively low name recognition. One suspects that even had he not campaigned, he would probably still have won almost by default. Yet this still the sort of victory which will raise chatter about whether a return to national politics will be on the cards for someone who appears to be one of the country’s most popular politicians. (Already, at his victory speech, Chadchart was forced to deny questions from reporters about whether his future ambitions would include the office of prime minister).1

No other candidate won more than 15 percent of the vote. Conservative independent candidate Mallika Boonmeetrakool Mahasook came in second place with 13 percent, narrowly besting Chaiwat Sathawornwichit from the People’s Party (who won only 8 percent). The Democrat candidate, Anucha Burapachaisri, was in fourth place with less than 5 percent of the vote. In a way, all of these candidates underperformed. There are enough combined Bhumjaithai and Democrat voters in Bangkok that both Mallika and Anucha should have theoretically performed a lot more strongly.2 Chadchart was able to build a diverse coalition of voters, and perhaps the enormous polling lead he opened discouraged anti-Chadchart voters from even turning out. (Turnout dipped dramatically from 60 percent in 2022 to only 49 percent this year).

There was no bigger underperformer than Chaiwat, however. The PP had just swept Bangkok in a landslide during the general election in February; for Chaiwat to come in a distant third place will be seen as an enormously disappointing result. Part of that comes down to Chadchart’s popularity and Chaiwat’s low name recognition, but the party leadership will be unable to escape taking responsibility: it is simply too dramatic a swing from the general election just a few months ago when they had won 1.4 million votes in Bangkok. The party made too many unforced errors, including a controversial appointment that alienated the party base. The PP’s base has become noticeably less enthusiastic about the party since the dissolution of the Move Forward Party; the election results underline this trend.

People’s Party emerges as largest group in the Bangkok Metropolitan Council, but fails to win a majority

The bright spot for the PP came in the Bangkok Metropolitan Council (BMC)3 race, where the party at the time of writing is on track to win around 22 seats. (26 seats is needed for a majority on the 50-seat council). This is a modest improvement from 2022, when the party won 14 seats. The pro-Chadchat “Khon Tum Ngarn” (Working People) group won 11 seats, while another pro-Chadchat group, Better Bangkok, won 2 seats. (These groups are not officially endorsed by Chadchart — see here). Pheu Thai, which allowed candidates to run under the party name but did not otherwise provide much official support, was reduced from 20 seats in 2022 to just 4 seats. (This was to be expected; many of the party’s candidates had switched to the independent pro-Chadchart groups).

For Chadchart, who depends on the BMC as the city legislature to meet his budgetary needs, these results are a mixed bag. No party or group has a majority, so no one will have complete veto power over Chadchart’s agenda. At the same time, however, Chadchart will likely have to continue doing what he did in his first term: negotiating with groups of councillors who may or may not be totally friendly to the governor. Will the more-dominant PP play ball with the governor? Are the pro-Chadchart candidates truly loyal to Chadchart? These questions will be tested in the governor’s second term.

It’s worth noting that Chadchart’s decision not to officially endorse BMC candidates may have backfired. Given the scale of his victory, pro-Chadchart groups probably should have been able to put in a stronger performance than what we saw. In the end, it’s likely that many voters remained confused to the end about who the Working People group were affiliated with — which is perfectly understandable given the unusual ambiguity of the one-way endorsement.4

I’m hesitant to draw too many lessons from the BMC elections for national parties, because in the end the major story there is that it was a good night for incumbents. Of the 50 councillors elected, 32 were incumbents — even though 17 of them switched parties or group affiliations between 2022 and 2026. So in the end, Bangkokians put a premium on familiar councillors with a track record of local service delivery.

Yet if forced to extrapolate from these results, I will say this. The PP’s decent performance helps alleviate some of the sting of the poor performance in the governor’s race. Almost all of the new faces elected were from the PP, showing that they are still virtually the only party in Bangkok where the brand matters more than the candidate. The fact that many former Pheu Thai members won under other labels (like the Working People group or even as Democrats) is another data point that the party may have to write off Bangkok for the time being. The Democrats appear to be in a holding state; its recruitment of strong candidates from other parties in some districts have helped the party maintain its seat count from 2022, but there is no sign yet of a revival in the capital.

With the general election and the Bangkok local election coming in quick succession, Thai politics will now enter a less electorally dramatic period. In the coming weeks, we’ll now turn our attention here at The Coffee Parliament to more policy-focused matters.

Miscellaneous notes

• The People’s Party also lost the Pattaya mayoral election to the incumbent Poramase Ngampichet. Poramase’s “We Love Pattaya” group swept the Pattaya council elections.

• Chadchart barely put up any election posters during the campaign — perhaps an indication that you don’t need to in order to win. Perhaps a sign that campaigns can reduce roadside posters moving forward?

The Race for Governor

At the start of this month, I wrote that Chadchart Sittipunt is likely to be a lock to win re-election as governor. The “Agong Regime” allegations have not hurt his polling numbers, as far as we can tell, and if that did not hurt, new scrutiny over the governor’s tenure like the Democrat Party’s examination of “suspicious” public procurement practices in the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration is unlikely to have much of a cut-through effect. All the data we have points to a Chadchart landslide, whether it be polling data or social media engagement statistics (Chadchart’s engagement statistics simply dwarfs all other candidates).

What I want to highlight today is Suan Dusit Poll’s interesting polling data where they asked respondents who they voted for in 2022 and who they intend to vote for this time. I’ve illustrated the data below. Worth noting that I don’t know the raw numbers of 2022 voters, only the percentages, so the diagram below is a little misleading in the sense that it presents all five 2022 candidates as having equal support. But for the purposes of illustrating voter flows, I think that it is useful enough:

Chadchart, who sits at 60 percent support in this poll, is retaining the majority of his 2022 voters (around 74 percent) with some minor outflows to other candidates. He is also receiving a big chunk of voters who previously cast their support for his 2022 opponents. Interestingly, 64 percent of Sakoltee voters, perhaps the most popular choice among ideological conservatives in 2022, told Suan Dusit that they plan to vote for Chadchart this time around. I imagine that this is very much an effect of seeing the People’s Party sweep Bangkok in the general election earlier this year and, fearing a repeat, choosing Chadchart as a “lesser evil.”

The People’s Party’s Chaiwat Sathawornwichit (sitting at 13 percent) retains around 44 percent of Wiroj Lakkhanaadisorn’s voters. That…is not a great result for the PP, and a sign that the party has simply been unable to generate any sort of enthusiasm in the capital. While the PP probably never truly expected Chaiwat to win, the lack of enthusiasm for its gubernatorial candidate could have negative downstream effects for its Bangkok Metropolitan Council candidates.

As far as I can tell from various polls and anecdotal data, aside from backing Chadchart, the conservative vote is “coalescing” around the independent candidate Mallika Boonmeetrakul Mahasuk (7 percent). For context: Mallika has long been a popular conservative media figure. There is certainly more online buzz that I can see around Mallika in conservative circles than Anucha; I imagine that most Bhumjaithai voters will back her given that there is no Bhumjaithai candidate. (If nothing else, Mallika certainly has an interesting election poster — one gets to ponder the need for change, innovation, idealism, and freedom in Bangkok).

The Democrat Party’s Anucha Burapachaisri (with around 4 percent support) is capturing only around 23 percent of voters who previously voted for the 2022 Democrat candidate, Suchatvee Suwansawat. If accurate, that is a devastating result for the Democrats, who didn’t do that well in Bangkok in the general election earlier this year but should still be capturing a lot more than 4 percent of the vote. My unscientific, anecdotal data is that even my politically-engaged friends do not recognize his name.

This is a lot of words to say that my assessment of the race has not changed since the start of the month, and all the other candidates are probably out of time to catch up unless there are some truly earth-shattering negative revelations about Chadchart.

The Bangkok Metropolitan Council Elections

I’m disinclined to look too closely at Suan Dusit’s BMC election because the data is a little questionable (they include Bhumjaithai as an option even though the party is not running any candidates). The polling we do have does suggest that independent candidates (from various groups, but most would be pro-Chadchart) are favored to win the most seats. Yet polling here is only useful to some extent — support for BMC candidates are distributed unevenly across districts.

I did find NIDA Poll director Suvicha Pouaree’s observations on this election interesting: “BMC candidates with organized votes are advantaged.” Because the PP and the Democrats have found it so difficult to generate enthusiasm amongst their voters in this election, he notes, they are unlikely to turn out their supporters. This favors independent candidates with their own local popularity, particularly in the pro-Chadchart “Working People” (khon tum ngarn) group.

How much does this matter, you may ask — is the BMC truly that powerful. ThaiPBS calls them the “hidden shaper of Bangkok’s future.” I would argue that for Chadchart, assuming he is re-elected, whether or not he has a friendly BMC could be a critical factor determining the level of success he experiences in his second term. Chadchart did not run with any BMC candidates in 2022 and has acknowledged that this has created “limitations” for him. Given the renewed attention that other parties have now placed on scrutinizing corruption within the Bangkok city government, a BMC that is dominated by unfriendly councilors could make life quite difficult for the governor.

With only ten days to go, we’ll find out very soon what the next four years of Bangkok’s administration will look like.

In memory of Her Royal Highness Princess Bajrakitiyabha, who passed away on June 11 at the age of 47.

The Thai government released an English statement on Princess Bajrakitiyabha’s passing today:

The Bureau of the Royal Household announced on 12 June 2026 that Her Royal Highness Princess Bajrakitiyabha Narendiradebyavati Kromluangrajasarinisiribajra Mahavajrarajadhita passed away peacefully at 19.48 hr on 11 June 2026 at King Chulalongkorn Memorial Hospital in Bangkok.

Her Royal Highness had stayed in the hospital for medical treatment since 15 December 2022, after losing consciousness because of a heart condition. In April 2026, doctors detected an infection in the abdomen caused by inflammation of the large intestine. This made Her Royal Highness’s condition unstable, with low blood pressure, an irregular heartbeat, and abnormalities in blood clotting.

Although the medical team provided treatment for Her Royal Highness to the best of its ability. Her Royal Highness’s condition deteriorated and the Princess passed away peacefully on 11 June 2026 at the age of 47.

His Majesty the King has graciously issued a Royal Command directing the Bureau of the Royal Household to arrange the royal funeral rites, with the highest honors accorded to the Princess in accordance with royal tradition. The royal remains will lie in state at Biman Rataya Pavilion within the Grand Palace.

Princess Bajrakitiyabha was His Majesty King Maha Vajiralongkorn’s eldest daughter, and the first grandchild of His Majesty King Rama IX. She was passionate about justice and human rights, working in particular to assist incarcerated women. She also served as the Thai Ambassador in Vienna between 2012 to 2014. Her full biography has been released here by the Thai government.

May the Princess rest in eternal peace.

Good morning from The Coffee Parliament. Here is your Morning Coffee Briefing for this week, with some updates on the Bangkok elections, a pardon for Thaksin Shinawatra, and the launch of a popular new economic scheme.

1. “Agong Regime" allegations put heat on Chadchart

Last week, I wrote that Chadchart Sittipunt is “virtually guaranteed” to win re-election as Bangkok governor. His competitors are going to try their best to make it as hard as possible for him, however, and in the past week we saw the first major challenge mounted against the incumbent governor. New allegations have been made on the existence of the “Agong Regime” or “Agong System.” What is an agong, you ask? It is a Teochew term referring to a grandfather. The Economic Party, which is running a candidate for governor, has alleged that a network exists where candidates for district administrators must meet with a certain individual and provide a quid pro quo to receive the office, along with other instances of corruption within the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration. Daily News has summarized all the allegations of corruption made here.

Attention on the “agong” has centered on Torsak Chotimongkol, the 69 year old former chairman of the board of advisors to the Governor of Bangkok under Chadchart. Torsak is known to be close to Chadchart and has worked with him since 2020 when Chadchart decided to run for governor, and he was nicknamed by the governor’s team as agong. Torsak firmly denied the existence of an “Agong Regime” (and so does Chadchart), and he is considering taking legal action. This hasn’t stopped Chadchart’s opponents from seizing on this issue, however. The People’s Party’s Chaiwat Sathawornwichit argued that corruption within the appointment system is indeed an issue, saying that “if the head does not shake, the tail would not move.” The Democrat candidate, Anucha Burapachaisri, made similar remarks.

These criticisms represent the first time that the popular governor has been attacked so directly during this campaign. Will it make a dent? A recent NIDA poll (fielded between June 2-4, so slightly before the Agong Regime allegations began coming out) found that Chadchart has the support of 67 percent of respondents, with Chaiwat trailing far behind at around 7 percent. This isn’t quite Assad margins, but it is approaching some pretty unassailable territory. Unless the Agong allegations really cut through, Chadchart will still be sailing towards re-election.

2. Thaksin Shinawatra pardoned

Former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was recently released from prison on parole, has received another royal pardon which immediately ended his probation. This pardon was issued on the occasion of Her Majesty the Queen’s birthday celebrations. As a result, Thaksin was able to remove his electronic monitoring ankle bracelet.

Thai media have reported that Thaksin is likely to soon travel to Dubai, with a telltale sign being that he does not plan to hold his customary birthday celebrations at his Chan Song Lah residence this year on July 26. It thus appears that Thaksin intends to keep a low public profile, unlike during the Pheu Thai government from 2023 to 2025 when he frequently made political statements. That should give Yodchanan Wongsawat, the new face of Pheu Thai, some breathing room to refresh the party’s image. See more here for my thoughts on what feels like the end of the Thaksin era.

3. Thai Chuay Thai scheme launches

The Thai Chuay Thai scheme launched last week. This is the successor program to Khon La Khrueng (“Let’s Go Halves”), the Prayut-era scheme where the government subsidized half the cost of payments at participating SMEs. An enormously popular policy, Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul revived it during his first term last year, and promised to continue it after being re-elected. Instead of continuing the Khon La Khrueng branding, however, the Bhumjaithai government has made the scheme their own by rebranding it to Thai Chuay Thai (“Thais Help Thais”) and having the government subsidize 60 percent of the cost of payments.

By all accounts, the scheme is once again enormously popular, with 26 million people registering for the program and over 21 million actual users during the first week. There are concerns from economists, however, that this scheme will only temporarily inject demand into the economy, and the government will likely need to find other measures to continue alleviating the increasing cost of living due to the global energy crisis.

At the same time, the Ministry of Finance is moving ahead with stricter rules for holders of the state welfare card (commonly called the “poor people card”), which allows low-income Thai citizens to access a range of benefits. Finance Minister Ekniti Nititanpraphas wants to ensure that those who are not truly in dire economic straits are not included in this scheme. Expect more criticism on how the government implements these checks. Already, Anutin has reportedly put a brake on plans to use whether a parent is included on their children’s tax returns deductions as a criterion to prevent them from accessing the state welfare card.

Two political experts, Stithorn Thananithichot and Suranand Vejjajiva, recently predicted that Chadchart Sittipunt is virtually guaranteed to win re-election for Bangkok governor next month. I think that this is probably a common opinion.

As a political scientist, however, I feel compelled to do a deeper dive into why exactly Chadchart is in such a strong position. While this is not necessarily a prediction, we have enough data to say that Chadchart is almost a lock to be re-elected as governor for three reasons. 1) He remains popular, 2) His competitors are not as strong as in 2022, and 3) Bangkok voters are unlikely to prioritize party over personality. Let’s take these arguments in turn.

1. Chadchart was very popular in 2022 and appears to remain popular

It would probably not be wrong to say that Chadchart is one of Thailand’s most popular politicians. Initially fueled by memes about his “strength” and down-to-earth personality, his support base evolved into a dedicated fandom. Although initially aligned with Pheu Thai (he served as transport minister in Yingluck Shinawara’s cabinet and was one of the party’s candidates for prime minister in 2019), he has largely shed his former partisanship in favor of a less divisive independent brand. All of this produced, for Chadchart, a dominant victory in 2022.

That victory is particularly impressive because it came against a very strong field. He faced perhaps the most qualified group of candidates to ever run for Bangkok governor, a field that included the incumbent governor and deputy governor (Aswin Kwanmuang and Sakoltee Phattiyakul), a famous engineering expert with a prominent media profile (the Democrats’ Suchatvee Suwansawat), and a famous MP with high name recognition (the MFP’s Wiroj Lakkhanaadisorn). Despite the tough competition, Chadchart still managed to win over 50% of the vote, relegating Suchatvee to a distant second place, clustering with Wiroj, Sakoltee and Aswin.

I wondered for a while if Chadchart would be able to retain his popularity over four years as governor. It is an unforgiving job; voters in the past have blamed governors for all of Bangkok’s intractable problems from traffic jams to flooding. But the evidence seems to indicate that Chadchart remains more or less broadly popular. A NIDA poll conducted during his third year on the job found that 48 percent of respondents planned to vote for him again, and around 74 percent of respondents were either very satisfied or largely satisfied with his performance. Given this level of satisfaction with the status quo, it begs the question of why these voters would take a risk on the unknown.

That Chadchart remains popular is visible in the fact that many Bangkok Metropolitan Council candidates are choosing to eschew party labels in order of affiliations with pro-Chadchart groups. Parties like the Democrats were publicly struggling to find a candidate to take on the governor, while Bhumjaithai chose not to even contest the race; these are indications that party polling must indicate a low likelihood of success. And speaking of struggling to find candidates…

2. Chadchart faces a lesser known field of candidates

This year, Chadchart’s competitors include:

• People’s Party candidate Chaiwat Sathornwichit

• Democrat Party candidate Anucha Burapachaisri

• Economic Party candidate Chanthep Selawet

• Independent candidate Mallika Mahasook

• Independent candidate ML Kornkasiwat Kasemsri

• Independent candidate Komsan Panwichartkul

The major party candidates are less known to the public compared to the 2022 slate of candidates, such as Suchatvee, Wiroj, or Aswin. Chaiwat has been a relatively low-profile PP MP. Anucha was a former Bangkok MP and the Prayut government’s chief spokesman, but he is not a household name. Mallika and ML Kornkasiwat are known for their media appearances and activism respectively, but whether that translates to support in a gubernatorial race is unclear. Things could change as the campaign begins in earnest, but they have a lot more to do to catch up to Chadchart’s universal name recognition.

The early polling indicates this name recognition problem. A Suan Dusit Poll found that Chadchart was supported by around 57 percent of respondents, while Chaiwat registered around 18 percent. No other candidate broke five percent. I do not know if this poll is fully accurate, but the wide margin is unlikely to be completely erroneous. While I expect the polls to tighten as the billboards go up and the other candidates become better known, the gap could well prove insurmountable.

Many of these candidates appear to acknowledge themselves that it is going to be difficult to defeat Chadchart. Chaiwat has said that “we must do better than Chadchart, who is already doing a good job.” Democrat Party leader Abhisit Vejjajiva said that he would give Chadchart a better score than the 5 out of 10 that he has given himself, noting that the governor is dedicated to his job. These are not the pitches of parties that sound determined and confident about unseating the incumbent.

3. Bangkok voters prioritize personality over party in the gubernatorial election

There are two ways in which Chatchart could lose. The first is that supporters of the People’s Party can be persuaded to stick with their party. In the 2026 general election, 1.4 million voters cast a party-list ballot for the People’s Party. The party dyed the capital completely orange, in many constituencies winning more votes than the next three parties combined. If the vast majority of 2026 PP voters cast a vote for Chaiwat Sathawornwichit, there would be no question that he would win.

Another scenario is if the conservative camp manages to unify around a candidate while PP and Pheu Thai voters fragment between Chatchart and Chaiwat. In 2026, a group of political parties that I will loosely group together as conservative parties (namely Bhumjaithai, the Democrat Party, United Thai Nation, the Economic Party, and Thai Pakdee) won a little over a million votes collectively. They are a group I would broadly characterize as anti-orange and anti-Thaksin (and hence the disapproval extends to Chadchart). The conservative-leaning Naewna newspaper has suggested that if the conservative camp can “dissolve their conflicts and unify their votes as a singular power, the game can be changed.”

On paper these are plausible suggestions; the graph above shows that the “progressive” and “conservative” camps both potentially have enough voters to defeat Chadchart. In practice, this is highly unlikely.

Take a look at a comparison of candidate performances in 2022 against political party performances on the party-list ballot in the 2023 general election. Chadchart outperformed his old party, Pheu Thai, by over 700,000 votes. It indicates that Chadchart possesses cross-party appeal and is able to attract votes from across the political spectrum. He received support from far more than just his natural base of supporters (Pheu Thai fans), meaning that he was able to draw in votes from progressive and conservative voters as well. His independent affiliation has allowed him to successfully erase his image as a former Pheu Thai figure and given license for people who would normally not vote for the Thaksin camp to vote for him.

Secondly, it shows that Bangkok’s progressive voters have different calculations in mind when voting in local elections. Wiroj underperformed the MFP’s subsequent performance by over 1.4 million votes. The progressives are not so loyal to the various incarnation of orange parties that it is unthinkable to vote for another non-orange candidate they like. It is thus highly unlikely that all of the PP’s 1.4 million voters will cast a vote for Chaiwat; a significant portion will certainly break for Chatchart. Larger political trends aren’t helping, either. The PP just suffered a bruising election defeat and there seems to be no indication that the party has been able to recover any semblance of wind in their sails. Unless something changes in the next month, even their supporters are probably not feeling all that enthusiastic about the party.

Meanwhile, conservative voters split in many directions in 2022, and the race became personality-driven rather than party-driven — Suchatvee significantly outperformed the Democrats’ subsequent performance in 2022. The fact that there was no clear “regime candidate” (Palang Pracharath did not field a candidate) made unification difficult. We will probably see something similar play out this time. In the past few elections, conservative voters have never shown any indication of an ability to unify. We tend to treat them as homogeneous camp, but they are anything but: of the roughly 1 million “conservative” voters, around half a million supported Bhumjaithai in 2026, while a little over 300,000 voted for the Democrats.

Given that Bhumjaithai is not fielding a candidate, the half a million will have to go somewhere. But instead of unifying behind a candidate, they will likely split between Anucha, Mallika, Chanthep, and ML Kornkasiwat. None appear to me to be a clear choice. The Democrats won four gubernatorial elections in a row this century, but that era is gone. It is not a given that the 300,000 who voted for the Democrats in the general election will vote for Anucha; at the same time, there are many Bhumjaithai voters who are probably incensed at the Democrats’ role in opposition and would not vote for him either. Indeed, in a bid to ensure that the PP’s Chaiwat does not win, some will likely cast a vote for Chatchart.

There is still a month of campaigning to go, and it will be interesting to see how the candidates’ vision for Bangkok differ. But at this early stage, the frontrunner to win is unusually clear.