No Confidence in a No-Confidence Debate
The People's Party is in a trap of its own making
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To have confidence or not — that is the question. Usually this poses no issue for opposition parties. The People’s Party finds itself in a unique position, however, vis-a-vis the Bhumjaithai government.
Back in late August, I began referring to the deal between Bhumjaithai and the People’s Party as a confidence and supply agreement.1 Perhaps I should have remarked in subsequent posts that usage of this term is not without controversy. Professor Siripan Nogsuan Sawasdee of Chulalongkorn University, for example, commented that in her view, the agreement likely does not qualify as a confidence and supply agreement. “If there is a no-confidence debate,” she asked, “how will the People’s Party cast their votes?” Indeed, she is right that the lack of clarity from the outset about what the PP will do in such a scenario made it an “unnatural” agreement, and it probably should have been outlined from the start.
But I was willing to call it a confidence and supply agreement because I was also relatively confident that such a governing arrangement implied the PP would have to back the government as long as Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul adhered to the restrictions the PP had set. The agreement made little sense otherwise: if a Bhumjaithai government was formed that could then immediately be felled in a vote of no confidence, it was not much of a deal at all.
In any case, decision time appears to be imminent for the PP. Pheu Thai figures are stating that the party may petition for a vote of no confidence to be held, targeting both Anutin and members of his cabinet. The incentive for Pheu Thai is clear: after a bruising two years in government, hammering Anutin is their best shot at a political recovery.2 They also get to take a clear stance differentiating themselves from the PP (without whom Anutin could never have come to power).
For his part, Anutin has stated that “if there is a no-confidence debate for political purposes, the government has no way of winning a majority in support. The government would have to think about what to do, as this is not in the agreement with the PP.” Although Anutin said he is willing to respond to scrutiny, I think you could read that statement as implying that an immediate dissolution of parliament is on the table if it looks like his government might fall.
Anutin earlier admitted:
We have to look at the real timeline. [Parliament will open again] in December. My intention is to dissolve parliament on January 31st, 2026. I probably won’t let people just come and castigate for fun and for free. If it is merely a political game, and it is a game that this government cannot win, then dissolving parliament one month before the original plan probably doesn’t mean much. We cannot get excited about these things.
Such a dynamic leaves the PP with a political trap of their own making. On one hand, being seen casting a vote of confidence in Bhumjaithai could further erode their standing with the orange base. The PP already took a big polling hit after voting for Anutin as prime minister. But if they do remove Anutin from power, it leads to the question of why they supported him to begin with. A referendum on constitutional reform is still not finalized, and if that is not secured, people will wonder why the PP didn’t just take Pheu Thai’s promise to immediately dissolve parliament if fresh elections was all they wanted.
The PP spokesperson, Parit Watcharasindhu, has tried to provide clarity by outlining the conditions for triggering a vote of no confidence. The first two conditions are expected given the Bhumajaithai-PP agreement:
If the government does not dissolve parliament by January 31, 2026, we will immediately request a no-confidence debate.
If amendment of Article 15/1 of the constitution does not receive the consent of parliament by the end of 2025, we will immediately request a no-confidence debate.
But Parit added another condition that was not covered in the agreement:
However, we have repeated all along that the first two conditions is not the handing of a blank check so the Anutin government can run the country however they like from now until the end of the year. If the government pursues policies, uses state power, or displays behavior that causes such heavy harm to the people and the country that it should not remain in power until the end of the year, the PP will use every mechanism (including a no-confidence debate) to scrutinize the Anutin government. This includes their effectiveness in resolving the scammer problem, transparency in using the budget, and interference in judicial processes.
The third condition provides the PP with substantial wiggle room; it is up to them to decide what the threshold is for the party to decide that Anutin should not be in power until the end of the year. It doesn’t eliminate the issue of political perception they face, however. Pheu Thai is going to have a political field day if they are seen to be the ones pushing for scrutiny of the Bhumjaithai government while the PP is seen protecting them. On the other hand, kicking Bhumjaithai out early without securing constitutional reform risks exacerbating the PP’s image of being political innocents.
Another issue the PP faces is there is still no guarantee that their favored vision for constitutional reform prevails. Although their draft of constitutional reform won the most votes in parliament’s first reading, what will they do if Bhumjaithai’s draft ends up being adopted after the entire process is done? Some analysts are calling the constitutional reform process a “hostage” to ensure that the PP cannot press forward on a vote of no confidence. But if the final draft looks closer to the Bhumjaithai draft than the PP draft, will the PP accept that outcome? Yet by that point, the year would likely almost be over and the deadline for parliamentary dissolution will already be close at reach.
All in all, the PP appears stuck between a rock and a hard place if Pheu Thai does move forward with a vote of no confidence. One option will likely lose them more votes. The other option turns them into a faithless party. It is an unenviable position to be in.
I’ve realized that some readers who are more familiar with presidential systems are not sure what this term means. A confidence and supply agreement is a partnership between two political parties where one party agrees to back the other in forming a government but without formally joining a coalition. The reason it is so named is because usually the supporting party would pledge to vote for the government in confidence debates and in matters of budgetary supply.
In this era of grand compromises, it doesn’t mean that they can’t join hands together again after the election, however.