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Duncan McCargo

The ascent of Anutin Charnvirakul to the office of Thai prime minister must be a moment of personal celebration.
Anutin is well known for piloting his own small plane around Thailand, which must give him a remarkably intimate overview of the country’s landscape and terrain. Yet from a political and indeed moral perspective, that landscape today looks disconcertingly desolate.
Few are cheering the abrupt promotion of the leader of the Thai parliament’s third-largest party, who has gained the keys to Government House on the back of expedient bargains and pacts. Nor are many people looking forward to the general election promised for early 2026.
Why? Just over two years ago, Thai politics was nothing if not colourful. The progressive Move Forward Party performed superbly in the May 2023 election, and for a brief period, its charismatic young leader Pita Limjaroenrat seemed poised to become prime minister.

Ultimately, Pita’s hopes were vetoed by a conservative-controlled Senate, and an improbable alliance emerged between pro-military parties and the once-oppositional Pheu Thai Party – the personal vehicle of ex-prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra and his family. Thaksin dramatically returned from self-imposed exile on the very day that his chosen candidate Srettha Thavisin became prime minister.
During the heady days between the launch of the election campaign and Srettha’s endorsement, the future of Thailand seemed at stake: this was not simply a struggle for power, but a contest over ideals.
Based on a survey, political analysts Napon Jatusripitak and Jacob Ricks have argued that the central cleavages evident in the 2023 election were age and ideology.
By age, they referred to a striking generation gap in voting: younger people had overwhelmingly supported Pita’s Move Forward Party.
By ideology, they meant the strong sense that this election was a referendum on the military generals who had captured power through the May 2014 coup d’état: not just a referendum on their performance, but a referendum on the conservative, royalist and bureaucratic values to which they subscribed.
Thaksin agreed to bring Pheu Thai into a previously unthinkable coalition with Palang Pracharat and United Thai Nation, two military-aligned parties. In doing so, he had crossed the Rubicon, violating the distinction between parties like his that had previously supported democracy and those born out of authoritarianism.

Fast forward to September, and those dividing lines have all but vanished. When Srettha was ousted by the Constitutional Court in August 2024 on ethical grounds, Thaksin promptly installed his daughter Paetongtarn into the position of prime minister. Her transparent unfitness for high office became more evident with each passing week, while Thaksin repeatedly hogged the spotlight, making clear that he was prime minister in all but name.
Thaksin had turned Pheu Thai from a beacon of democracy into a crude vehicle for his oversized ego and dynastic ambitions: his personal credibility collapsed and Paetongtarn’s government haemorrhaged support. Pheu Thai was a dead party walking, and everyone knew it.
When Paetongtarn herself was ousted by the Constitutional Court – this time resulting from a largely self-inflicted wound, a bungled phone call with Cambodian leader Hun Sen over their border dispute that went viral on social media – Thaksin was unable to hold his coalition government together, finally deciding to accept his fate and serve time in jail.
The main beneficiary? Anutin, Thailand’s long-time prime minister in waiting, and his ultra-pragmatic Bhumjaithai Party. The problem with Bhumjaithai is that very few voters like the party, which secured just 1.1 million party list votes in the May 2023 election, compared with the 14.4 million won by Move Forward and the 10.9 million gained by Pheu Thai. Even in Bhumjaithai’s northeastern stronghold of Buriram, the party lost the party list vote in all 10 constituencies to Move Forward.
Bhumjaithai is an old-style Thai party that wins seats through local patronage politics, often associated with powerful provincial families. People vote for these parties mainly because they feel obliged or because they owe the candidates a favour.
Bhumjaithai has espoused a hardline royalist rhetoric in recent years, but most self-described royalists would prefer other conservative parties, viewing Bhumjaithai as a pragmatic, even opportunistic party that stands for very little. Whatever its faults, Move Forward – now relaunched as the People’s Party – and Pheu Thai are parties that stand for something. Or they used to.

Another reason the Thai political landscape looks so desolate from the aerial overview offered by a small plane is that, according to recent social media posts, many young voters have growing doubts about the People’s Party.
Anutin owes his position as prime minister to the People’s Party, a progressive party that campaigned in 2023 on policies – including reforming the lèse-majesté law and abolishing military conscription – that represent the polar opposite of Bhumjaithai’s conservative-inflected pragmatism. People’s Party MPs all voted for Anutin to become prime minister because he promised to hold an early election and to initiate the process of holding a referendum on constitutional reform.
But Bhumjaithai is a master player which is bound to use the advantages of even a short incumbency to enlist the state apparatus to support its electoral ambitions. And given that Bhumjaithai already effectively controls the Senate, which would need to approve any amendments to the constitution, Anutin can exercise veto power over the outcome of any political reform process. Has the People’s Party shrewdly outwitted Pheu Thai, or has it naively handed power to a more dangerous political enemy?
The bright political colours – orange, red and yellow – that enlivened the 2023 election have faded, along with the clear sense of generational divide. First, Thaksin endorsed the conservatives, and now the youthful progressives appear outwardly to have followed suit. Cleavages based on age and ideology are receding from the landscape, and when Anutin looks down from his plane, he surely imagines an emerging electoral terrain, awash with Bhumjaithai blue.
Duncan McCargo is President’s Chair in Global Affairs at Nanyang Technological University and an Associate Senior Fellow in the Thailand Studies Programme at ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute. This article was first published by the institute’s commentary website fulcrum.sg.


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Thailand’s Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul attends a press conference at Bhumjaithai party headquarters on September 7. Photo: Reuters

At one point in 2023, former Move Forward Party leader Pita Limjaroenrat (centre) appeared poised to become Thailand’s prime minister. Photo: AFP

Thailand’s former prime minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra visits her father, Thaksin, at Klong Prem Central Prison in Bangkok on Monday. Photo: AFP 

People’s Party leader Natthaphong Ruengpanyawut speaks in Thailand’s parliament during a voting session for a new prime minister on September 5. Photo: Reuters

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Anutin Charnvirakul, then Thailand’s deputy prime minister and minister of public health, touches a cannabis plant during the opening of a cannabis clinic in Bangkok in 2020. Photo: AFP

A banner featuring the image of Thai King Maha Vajiralongkorn is seen outside the Bhumjaithai Party headquarters in Bangkok last weekend. Photo: EPA

Former prime minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra (centre) appears at the constitutional court last month to testify about the phone call controversy with Cambodia’s Hun Sen. Photo: EPA

A view inside Thailand’s House of Representatives in Bangkok earlier this month. Photo: EPA

Former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra (centre) is escorted into a police van outside the Supreme Court in Bangkok on Tuesday. Photo: Thai News Pix/AFP

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Thailand’s former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra arrives at the Supreme Court in Bangkok on September 9. Photo: Zuma Press Wire/dpa

Paetongtarn Shinawatra (right) walks out with her mother Potjaman Na Pombejra (centre) and sister Pintongta Shinawatra Kunakornwong (third from left) after visiting her father, Thailand’s former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, at Klong Prem Central Prison in Bangkok on Monday. Photo: AFP

A view shows the corridor of Klong Prem Central Prison where inmates sleep, in Bangkok, Thailand. Photo: Reuters

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This Week in Asia

Opinion

Asia Opinion

The political colours of 2023 have faded as Thailand’s progressive and dynastic parties embrace the new PM’s Bhumjaithai blue of compromise


The political colours of 2023 have faded as Thailand’s progressive and dynastic parties embrace the new PM’s Bhumjaithai blue of compromise.


Paetongtarn Shinawatra

Asia elections

Anutin Charnvirakul

Pheu Thai Party (Thailand)

Bhumjaithai party

Thaksin Shinawatra

Move Forward Party (Thailand)

Srettha Thavisin

People’s Party

Pheu Thai party

Expresses the views, ideas and conclusions of the author. (Eg. Enough of Crazy Rich Asians, think of crazy poor Hongkongers.)


Column

Asian Angle

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}The political colours of 2023 have faded as Thailand’s progressive and dynastic parties embrace the new PM’s Bhumjaithai blue of compromise

The political colours of 2023 have faded as Thailand’s progressive and dynastic parties embrace the new PM’s Bhumjaithai blue of compromise