2026 Election Weekly Briefing (Jan 16)
Updates on the People's Party, and a Cambodian intervention
Happy Friday!
Let me start with a note that I will be speaking at a webinar hosted by the ISEAS Yusof-Ishak Institute on February 2nd. I’ll be discussing how the 2026 election campaign has unfolded and potential coalition scenarios. If you’re interested, you can register here.
Now onto updates from another week of campaigning!
People’s Party unveils “Professionals” team
Keeping its promise to show off its full team of administrators to-be in a potential People’s Party government, the PP announced the full lineup of “Professionals.” You can see the full list here. The PP has been steadily featuring members of this team on their social media, including Ramathibodi Hospital Associate Professor Bowornsom Leerapan, LINE MAN and Wongnai executive Isriya Paireepairit, and Silicon Craft co-founder Naiyavud Wongkomet.
It’s hard to predict the extent to which this will move the needle for the PP. I think you could interpret this move in a few ways. For one, it is a sign that the PP is taking the prospects of governing seriously — it is after all a much more realistic scenario now than most believed for Move Forward in 2023 — and it wants to signal that it is no longer just the fresh-faced party of opposition. This could perhaps help pull some “soft orange” voters who may otherwise be lured back to the Democrats or even to Bhumjaithai. At the same time, however, the fact that most of these figures are not household names may diminish the overall impact of this announcement. It also risks sparking questions about whether the party is abandoning its “original” MPs in favor of this new technocratic team.
Another People’s Party candidate arrested
PP leader Natthaphong Rueangpanyawut was forced to hold a press conference on January 14, when it was announced that one of the party’s candidates in Tak province was arrested after allegations that he was linked to running an online gambling site. This follows another arrest last month, when a PP candidate in Bangkok was arrested after allegations of money laundering. These types of headlines cannot be helpful for any party, but it especially hurts the PP when the party has put so much emphasis on fighting gray capital. The slogan “with us, there is no gray,” becomes a moral standard. A PP party-list candidate wrote a Facebook post saying that there may be “two more arrest warrants” and that these candidates should show responsibility.
Most immediately, the Tak province arrest means that the PP is down one incumbent; the seat is forfeited because it is no longer possible to register a new candidate. Move Forward had won with a 10 percent margin in 2023, so it is not insurmountable by any means. A Nation analysis argues that this is the old district of the current Democrat secretary-general Chaiwuti Bannawat, and while he is himself running on the party-list this year, his support could allow the Democrats a chance to snatch this seat.
NIDA releases new poll
NIDA has released a new poll, which I analyzed in full here:
Campaign Midway Point Vibe Check
We’re currently at about the halfway point of the election campaign, and I thought it would be a good idea to take stock of where we stand and what we’ve seen so far.
Cambodian minister says “don’t vote for Anutin”
Keo Remy, Cambodia’s senior minister for human affairs, urged Thais to vote for the People’s Party or Pheu Thai if they want to avoid further conflict with Cambodia. Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul shrugged off these remarks, joking that “the Cambodian minister appears to be a major canvasser,” but Foreign Minister Sihasak Phuongketkeow was much less amused.
It’s difficult to understand why exactly a senior figure in the Cambodian government would say this out loud, because logically Thais would be disinclined to follow the advice of anyone in Hun Sen’s orbit. One potential theory is that these remarks are intended at the border regions (Buriram province is Bhumjaithai’s heartland), where voters would be heavily affected if the conflict is sparked again. Another more conspiratorial theory, as stated by commentator Voranai Vanijaka, is that this is a case of reverse psychology, where the Cambodian government would like Bhumjaithai to stay in power because Hun Sen’s popularity benefits from having a less compromising neighbor. It’s hard to know for sure what the facts are and why a Cambodia official felt it was useful to intervene.