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Aidan Jones

Thailand remained in a political deadlock on Tuesday, as the Pheu Thai party hinted it could dissolve parliament and set the course for a general election, while the opposition People’s Party refused to back either the caretaker government, or the arch-conservatives who blocked them from power just two years ago.
The kingdom’s protracted political crisis has taken another messy turn since Paetongtarn Shinawatra, the daughter of the divisive billionaire Thaksin, was removed as prime minister last week by the constitutional court.
It ruled she had breached the ethics of office in a leaked conversation with Cambodia’s former leader.
The political vacuum has pushed the People’s Party – with the most number of MPs – into a king-making role, with Pheu Thai’s caretaker government needing its 143 lower house votes to drive their party candidate Chaikasem Nitisiri into the prime minister’s office.

People’s Party – known as Move Forward Party (MFP) in its previous incarnation – shook up Thai politics at the last general election in 2023 with a radical reform agenda, winning the most seats as it pulled in millions of first-time voters and ate into Pheu Thai’s rural base without relying on the money politics traditionally associated with Thai elections.
But its win unnerved the country’s elite – especially with an election pledge to reform the draconian royal defamation law. That establishment has for decades used coups and the courts to destabilise or destroy elected governments that it fears do not represent its interests.
MFP’s former leader Pita Limjaroenrat was soon blocked from office by the military-appointed senate, before the party itself was dissolved by the courts, with its top figures banned from politics.
With the People’s Party now seemingly holding the keys to the country’s next government, the same conservative establishment has reached out to the very reformists it once sidelined.
In a bid to secure enough votes to install its candidate Anutin Charnvirakul as prime minister, one side of the conservative bloc – led by the Bhumjaithai party – has begun courting the People’s Party.
But the party is buying time, saying it needs to consult its 100,000 members before making a final decision on its next moves on Wednesday.

“We’re not stalling our decision,” Parit Wacharasindhu, an MP and spokesman for the People’s Party, told reporters on Tuesday.
“We have been calling for the dissolution of the parliament consistently in the last two months. If that call is still not answered by the caretaker prime minister today, we will proceed to make a decision to choose whatever is the least risky option.”
Risks for Thailand’s pro-democracy parties are sewn into politics. Two coups have toppled elected governments since 2006, while the courts and other constitutional chicanery have taken out several popular leaders.
Rumours are also mounting of a possible comeback for Prayuth Chan-ocha, the ex-general who carried out Thailand’s last coup in 2014 and then presided over the country until his party was hammered by an angry electorate at the 2023 election.
The retired army chief is a privy counsellor to Thailand’s immensely powerful King Maha Vajiralongkorn and remains on a five-man shortlist for prime minister.
Pheu Thai, the political vehicle of Thaksin Shinawatara whose two-decade power struggle with the elite had defined Thailand until MFP’s emergence, insists it can still form a government.

On Tuesday, Pheu Thai’s Secretary General Sorawong Thienthong said the party was weighing up its options between nominating Chaikasem, a mild-mannered 77-year-old former justice minister, and trying to dissolve the house and calling for a new election.
“If there is a vote for prime minister, we will submit Chaikasem Nitisiri,” he told Reuters.
Holding nearly a third of lower house seats, People’s Party has demanded that whichever side it supports – if it decides to support either – must hold new elections by early next year, as well as a referendum on a new constitution.
Crucially, it insists it will not join any government it helps to form, instead saying that any administration it backs must dissolve parliament within four months.
Rewriting the rules
The People’s Party is determined to rewrite a constitution drafted by military-aligned conservatives that has cemented the power of unelected institutions in Thailand.
Its aim is to curtail the powers of the Thai courts and military, which have toppled a succession of elected governments and repeatedly banished reformist leaders from politics.
But the party now faces a test of its own credibility.
Helping either Bhumjaithai or Pheu Thai – the latter of which had initially agreed to ally with MFP after the last election before summarily abandoning it – form a government risks angering its own supporters.
It has launched a QR code vote to consult its members and was due to convene a meeting later on Tuesday to determine its next steps.
The lower house could begin voting for a new prime minister as soon as Thursday.


Meanwhile, public anger is growing. A nascent protest movement is demanding Pheu Thai’s removal from power, emboldened by the scandal surrounding Paetongtarn’s leaked call with Cambodia’s Hun Sen.
Nationalists saw the call as evidence of divided loyalties, accusing the former prime minister of putting her family’s interests ahead of the nation, while other critics saw it as a symptom of Thailand’s broader malaise.
“The key takeaway is the government has been shameless,” protest leader Jatuporn Prompan, a former ally of Paetongtarn’s father Thaksin, told reporters.
“People’s Party needs to act now, the fact that they say they don’t want to go right or left shows they are choosing Pheu Thai. They can side with anybody but not Pheu Thai. I cannot accept a new prime minister from them.”
The political paralysis comes at a precarious moment for Thailand’s economy, beset by shrinking economic growth, a punishing US tariff regime and a faltering tourism industry – now compounded by two years of parliamentary instability.
“If the political uncertainty results in a snap election, it could be dragged out and put pressure on already softening growth momentum,” warned Lavanya Venkateswaran, an economist at Overseas-Chinese Banking Corporation in Singapore.
Additional reporting by Reuters and Bloomberg


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People’s Party moves into king-making role as Pheu Thai and arch-conservatives work to secure its support for their prime minister candidate


People’s Party moves into king-making role as Pheu Thai and arch-conservatives work to secure its support for their prime minister candidate.


Thailand hangs on decision by pro-democracy party for route out of deadlock

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}People’s Party moves into king-making role as Pheu Thai and arch-conservatives work to secure its support for their prime minister candidate

People’s Party moves into king-making role as Pheu Thai and arch-conservatives work to secure its support for their prime minister candidate