Bhumjaithai's Big Technocratic Bet
Prime Minister Anutin welcomes outside experts to his cabinet
Catching you up: Bhumjaithai leader Anutin Charnvirakul was elected as prime minister on September 5th, after forming a confidence and supply agreement with the opposition People’s Party. He officially became prime minister on September 7th, although the Pheu Thai caretaker ministers remains in office until Anutin’s cabinet is sworn in.
In 2004, University of Michigan Professor Allen Hicken described the administration of former prime minister Prem Tinsulanonda as bifurcated by technocratic appointments and party politicians. As prime minister, Prem ensured that “macroeconomic policy would be insulated and run by Prem-backed technocrats.” On the other hand, “the political parties would be given control of the sectoral ministries (Commerce, Industry, Education, Agriculture, etc.) and would be allowed to run them with very little interference from the Prime Minister.” As a result, Hicken argues, “policymakers with broader interests than the typical politician” were able to set policy; “thus, this group had the incentives and capability to implement costly but needed policy reforms.”1
Aside from Prem’s premiership, the inclusion of expert “outsiders” have tended to occur mostly in unelected governments. Anand Panyarachun’s reformist cabinet that was appointed in the wake of the 1991 military coup was composed almost entirely of technocrats handpicked by Anand. The Prayut Chan-o-cha government after the 2014 military coup initially had its fair share of technocrats as well, but most of them were removed following the 2019 general election. The recently-ousted Pheu Thai cabinet’s ministerial allocations, on the other hand, were based essentially entirely on party quotas.
The original expectation, therefore, was that this new Bhumjaithai-led government would have followed this grand tradition of cake dividing and giving the plentiful ministerial positions to its new allies. But Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul has instead chosen to surprise us all. Not for him the monopolization of key industries by the core coalition leader. Instead, Anutin has (over copious amounts of orange cake)2 unveiled his team of expert outsiders:
Treasury Director-General Dr. Ekniti Nitithanprapas will become Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister. Ekniti had been the key driving force behind digitizing the tax systems while heading the Revenue Department and pushing new excise tax policies at the Excise Department. In addition, former Krung Thai Bank CEO Vorapak Tanyawong will be Deputy Finance Minister.
Dusit Thani CEO Suphajee Suthumpun will become Commerce Minister. She has widely been seen as a successful business leader.
Former PTT CEO Auttapol Rerkpiboon will become Energy Minister. Per The Nation, he worked at Thailand’s largest oil and gas company for 35 years.
Former Foreign Ministry Permanent Secretary Sihasak Phuangketkeow will become Foreign Minister. Sihasak is “widely regarded as a seasoned diplomat,” having joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs since 1979 and served as ambassador to multiple countries.
In addition, Dr. Boworksan Uwanno will become Deputy Prime Minister overseeing legal affairs. Bowornsak is an expert on constitutional law and was the secretary-general of the 1997 Constitution Drafting Committee. He also chaired the Constitution Drafting Committee following the 2014 military coup, but that draft was rejected. Bowornsak is likely to oversee the constitutional reform process that Bhumjaithai has pledged to embark on. More on that in a future post.
The ministerial allocations haven’t been completely finalized, as vetting to ensure that all ministers meet the required constitutional qualifications continues. But the most recent reports indicate they will be allocated according to party quotas. Kla Tham will take Agriculture, Education, and Tourism, for example, while Palang Pracharath will oversee Public Health and Labor. The Suchart Chomklin faction of the United Thai Nation Party will receive Natural Resources and Industry. In short, it looks like Anutin has struck a compromise reminiscent of the Prem government: the critical economic positions are in the hands of expert outsiders, while other industries will be run by party politicians.
Why did Anutin do this?
Anutin certainly had positions to spare. This minority government is only composed of a little over 140 MPs — far below the 250+ that a majority coalition would usually have. Party quotas are usually allocated based on the number of MPs a party has; with fewer parties and fewer MPs in this government, Bhumjaithai could afford to spare a number of ministries for outsiders without displeasing its coalition allies. It still took political will, of course, but it was easier than in a regular administration. (Recall how even the technocratic “Four Sons” team officially attached to the Palang Pracharath Party was ejected after the 2019 general election).
But that alone does not explain why Anutin felt the need to bring in so many technocrats in so many critical roles. My guess is that this is also driven by two other calculations.
Firstly, the Thai economy has been underperforming. With only four months before he has pledged to dissolve parliament, Anutin will likely be hoping that his expert team will be able to raise business confidence and work together to strengthen the short-term economic outlook. (This, of course, will be coupled with “quick win” policies that will aim to put money in peoples’ pockets — something I will discuss in another article). As the prime minister has noted, he has sought figures who can “work quickly and immediately."
Just as importantly, Anutin has put together a “dream team” to raise his governing credentials and bolster the Bhumjaithai brand. Before Anutin became prime minister, if asked who was on Bhumjaithai’s economic team, one could be forgiven for being quite unsure. But the prime minister has shown his openness to welcoming in outsiders to shore up this liability. Now, Anutin seems to be signaling, if you vote for Bhumjaithai, you can expect sound policymaking from experts — not just from politicians.
This could matter a lot for Bhumjaithai, which for most of its existence was thought of as a localist party focused mostly on bolstering its strength in provincial constituencies. This “outsider strategy” could in particular help him win over former Democrat voters, a group that Anutin will need if he hopes to begin winning seats in Bangkok and other urban areas and if he wants more party-list votes. This is a good time to remind ourselves that Bhumjaithai’s performance on the constituency ballot in 2023 far outstripped its party list vote share, and doing better on the latter will certainly make Bhumjaithai an even more formidable electoral machine.
Hicken argues that the political architecture designed by Prem “laid the foundation for the economic boom of the late 1980s and early 1990s.” But of course, unlike Prem’s government, Anutin’s governing structure is still being billed as a short-term arrangement.3 For such a developmental dividend to repeat again, Anutin would need his dream team to be in place for longer than four months — and that depends on his ability to convert the Bhumjaithai minority government into a majority administration after the next general election. Will it work? We’ll soon see.
See Allen Hicken (2004), “The Politics of Economic Reform in Thailand: Crisis and Compromise”
Seemingly every meeting Anutin has had with his prospective ministers have involved orange cake — a nod to the fact that he owes his premiership to the People’s Party.
We also don’t know if these outsiders would have actually accepted a long-term appointment, or if the knowledge that they were taking a political role for only a few months sweetened the deal.
Thanks for all your recent commentary which has helped us make sense of the twists and turns of Thai politics. I'm glad to see you mention in your latest post that you are planning a future post on the constitutional reform process. That would be particularly useful given the seeming complexity of the process arising from the obstacles the military government put in place to make it extremely difficult to achieve constitutional reform. There also seems to be a grand game of tactics being played out between Anutin (who all of a sudden is now pro-reform) and the People's Party on how to go about constitutional reform, in large part in response to the recent ruling of the Constitutional Court. Given BJT's previous opposition to constitutional reform, there will no doubt be differences over the the substance of constitutional reform and just how far reaching it is, along with tactical maneuvering by both parties. Your post may benefit from waiting a little to see how things are likely to develop. But please don't leave it too long. Thank you.
One of the key policy platforms of the People's Party is fostering policy and investment settings that will lead to a restructuring of the sclerotic and uncompetitive Thai economy. This has met with stiff opposition from the Thai establishment, particularly the business sector which has been protected from substantive competition over the years. It is unclear at this point whether Anutin's outside Cabinet appointments to economic ministries see the need for fundamental reforms to the Thai economy or rather side with continued protection of established business elites. What we have seen is Anutin's commitment to continuing populist policies. This may increase household expenditure in the short term. But it will take far more than this to right the ailing Thai economy. Achieving strong economic growth at rates enjoyed by Thailand in the late eighties and early nineties is something that will be very difficult to achieve in the context of current global economic challenges.