Calm Before the Storm

We have been able to take a bit of a breather this past week at The Coffee Parliament after Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra’s suspension, because Thai politics has now entered what I think of as a period of calm before the storm. Regardless of what happens with the court decision, at least a measure of political chaos will follow — either with the selection process for a new prime minister in an increasingly small pool of candidates or renewed protests against the prime minister in the event that she survives. So for today, some minor updates from this uneasy time of peace.

For Asialink Insights, I recently wrote a piece on how this state of political flux marks the possibility for new alliances. In short, I think that while post-2023 politics has been characterized by the grand compromise between Pheu Thai and the conservative parties, the Hun Sen phone call may prove to be a critical juncture that allows these parties to conjure up new, perhaps even more unlikely friendships, again. In particular, I’m keeping an eye out for how the People’s Party has appeared uncharacteristically hesitant to criticize Pheu Thai over this matter. Please check out the full piece for some of my thoughts on the medium to long term future of Pheu Thai and how this affects the calculations of other political actors.

I also want to note the results of an interesting new NIDA Poll, where 42 percent of respondents said they wanted Paetongtarn to resign and almost 40 percent said she should dissolve parliament and call for fresh elections. Only around 15 percent of respondents said that Paetongtarn should continue in office as usual (only a few percentage points higher than said they supported Pheu Thai in NIDA’s previous poll). That is a devastating number for Pheu Thai, but also points to a highly divided public (around the same numbers want the conservatives’ favored option of the PM’s personal resignation as those who want the People’s Party favored option of a dissolution of parliament). In addition, only a little over 1 percent said they supported a military coup. I think that fears of a coup are currently overblown in the international media, and this figure points to how conditions are far from ripe for one.¹

Also noteworthy is that when asked to pick from the list of 2023 prime minister candidates, the top choice for prime minister is now General Prayut Chan-o-cha. (I discussed the likelihood of him returning to office here.) This high percentage may be an artifact of name recognition, genuine exhaustion from (to borrow a British turn of phrase) the “coalition of chaos” under Pheu Thai, or simply the fact that from the restricted list of eligible candidates there are few genuinely popular options left. In the end, I’m not sure that public opinion will truly be factored in the selection of the next prime minister, as that will be the result of parliamentary dealmaking — but this data point surely cannot have hurt Prayut’s chances (if he is actually open to a return to the political arena, of course).

Finally, this past week saw the resurfacing of Thaksin Shinawatra. He had been virtually completely silent after the Hun Sen call was leaked but has now returned with a bang, appearing on stage at a discussion on soft power. (Notably during this event, Thaksin made a gaffe when referring to the prime minister and pointing to himself before quickly correcting his hand gesture.) The former prime minister also attended a meeting of Thailand’s tariff negotiating team. This has inevitably led to renewed criticism about why a man with no formal position of power appears to be wielding influence in the Thai government — but at this point, that is hardly news!

1. It makes for interesting headlines, to be sure, but anyone who was in Thailand during 2013-2014 and 2006 will probably remember that the atmosphere back then was different and a far more constricted political impasse had been reached.