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.
The minority commissioners may be speaking out now because there is talk that opposition politicians may petition that the EC has violated the law based on negligence in this Senate collusion case.