Bhumjaithai On Track to Win Election
Dark blue surge
The vote count has been extremely slow to show on the Electoral Commission’s website, but based on the data we have so far, it is highly likely that Bhumjaithai will win the general election outright.
At around 9 pm, Thai media were forecasting the following results:
Bhumjaithai: 198 seats (178 constituencies, 20 party-list)
People’s Party: 97 seats (70 constituencies, 27 party-list)
Pheu Thai: 86 seats (67 constituencies, 19 party-list)
Kla Tham: 61 seats (59 constituencies, 2 party-list)
Democrat: 21 seats (11 constituencies, 10 party-list)
Another website, Vote62.com, which says they have newer data than what is showing on the Electoral Commission’s website, is putting Bhumjaithai at around 174 seats and the People’s Party at about 150 seats.
It’s going to take quite some time before we get the total results, but I think it is virtually certain that Bhumjaithai will win outright. The People’s Party leader, Natthaphong Rueangpanyawut, has already conceded that based on current trends, the PP is unlikely to be the largest party, and the winner should be able to form a government.
Bhumjaithai successfully fought off a late PP surge and appears to have perfectly executed the playbook that I described earlier (indeed, exceeding expectations):
I think Bhumjaithai is well-positioned because it has attracted an immense number of baan yai (strong local clans) that, combined with their incumbents, positions them to be highly competitive in perhaps ~130 constituencies. They have also done just enough with building their national brand around a new technocratic team and attracting conservatives that they could perhaps win around 10-20 party-list seats.
This will be the first time in the 21st century that a conservative party has won the most seats in a general election, and it is a seismic shift in Thai politics.
I will have a lot more to say after we get final election results. But it looks like we are headed towards a Bhumjaithai-led coalition, most likely with Kla Tham (and potentially Pheu Thai, for maximum stability) as key coalition partners. Regardless of who the partners are, we know this: Anutin Charnvirakul will continue to serve as Thailand’s prime minister.
A remarkable personal victory for Anutin. You always maintained this result was a reasonable possibility even when the opinion polls pointed in another direction. One wonders how important his decision to retain the interior minister role for himself was in laying the groundwork for this victory.
The trend is pretty clear. Nevertheless, not even one third of the votes have been included in these calculations.