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Aidan Jones

Thailand’s conservative Bhumjaithai Party won Sunday’s election as its stability message cut through with the electorate, while the reformist People’s Party failed to convince voters it had the remedy to years of economic drift and political turbulence.
Caretaker prime minister Anutin Charnvirakul’s Bhumjaithai was forecast to win nearly 200 seats by Channel 3 on the basis of results from the parties. The progressive People’s Party trailed far behind, just above 100 seats, ahead of jailed former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra’s Pheu Thai party in third.
“We are likely to take first place in the election,” Anutin later told reporters at his party headquarters in Bangkok.
“The victory today belongs to all Thais, no matter whether you voted for us or not.”


People’s Party leader Natthaphong Ruengpanyawut earlier conceded his party had lost the election, a gut punch to its young supporters who have clamoured behind its call for root-and-branch change for Thailand.
”We accept the election results, our party did not come in first place,” he told reporters, appealing to the party’s supporters to not “stop hoping … stay engaged in politics and help keep [power] accountable together”.
Local media polls had earlier said Bhumjaithai, which had been in government for just under three months before Anutin called the snap election to seek a fresh mandate, could end up with as many as 200 seats or more once counting was done.
If it does hit that number it will be nearly three times its previous seat share from the last poll in 2023 as Anutin successfully transforms what was once a regional power base into a nationwide political force.

Over the coming hours and days his party is likely to seek a coalition with smaller groups, and push it comfortably over the 251 majority threshold of the 500-seat lower house needed to govern.
The race to win the most seats had been expected to be a hard-fought duel between the reformist People’s Party and Bhumjaithai.
But Bhumjaithai appears to have capitalised on its status as the incumbent as well as a surge of nationalist sentiment curdled by a border conflict with Cambodia.
Anutin also forged pre-election alliances with Thailand’s dominant regional political dynasties, known as the baan yai, which appeared to have helped power Bhumjaithai back into office.
“If the unofficial results do come through, then it shows the electorate have seen the work of the government over the last two and a half months and responded to that,” Varawut Silpa-archa, the head of one of those families and a key Anutin lieutenant, told This Week in Asia, earlier in the count.
Thaksin’s Pheu Thai, meanwhile, was on track for its poorest result in its history.
But it may still be invited into the administration to support Anutin, who appears primed to lead Thailand’s fourth government in three years.

The results are a bitter blow to the hopes of those who want to see structural reform of Thailand’s turbulent politics and unequal economy.
“I’m heartbroken,” said Ploymas Yooying, 25, as an election party soured early in the night at the Bangkok headquarters of the People’s Party. “We came in so confident we would win and now I’m stunned. But next time it has to be ours … I’m still fighting with hope.”
The progressive youth-facing People’s Party, led by former tech executive Nattapong, 38, won the last election in 2023, in a previous incarnation of the Move Forward Party.
But it was blocked from taking power and then dissolved – its leaders banned – for an attempt to reform the royal defamation law that shields the Thai monarchy from scrutiny.
The courts and other unelected bodies – agencies with a long record of giving conservative interests a leg up into power even after they have lost elections – may also have their say this time.
A concurrent vote is being held on reforming a 2017 military-scripted constitution, which critics say is to blame for Thailand’s ulcerous decay of the last decade by embedding the powers of those courts and agencies to overturn the democratic mandate.
Results on whether to hold the referendum are pending.

Conservative custodians
Bhumjaithai was always going to be a formidable opponent, experts said, with the wave of nationalism sweeping parts of the country – in particular border areas – since the conflict with Cambodia that dragged through the second half of last year.
The party is seen as the custodian of conservative interests, including the unassailable place of the monarchy at the apex of Thai power.
It also hails its credentials as the defender of Thai territorial integrity – a major election issue especially among older voters with last year’s border clashes still front of mind.
Led by Anutin, a 59-year-old heir to a construction empire, the party says it has the remedy for the country’s ailing economy, which is growing slower (1.8 per cent to 2 per cent at best this year) than its competitors Indonesia and Vietnam.
Anutin had vowed to make sure Thailand “is no more the sick man of Asia” in his final pitch to the public, a reference to an economic decay that has been a decade in the making.
“We’ve done everything we could, but we can’t force the hearts of the public,” Anutin told reporters after casting his ballot in Buriram.
He later said he hoped any bitterness between parties during the “competition” of the campaign phase could be put aside in the national interest after the polls.
But to his critics, Anutin represents more of the same.
He has been an ever-present face in government during Thailand’s recent decline, serving as a minister under Prayuth Chan-ocha, the ex-general who ruled Thailand between a 2014 coup and the 2023 election.
Bhumjaithai swept constituencies in the poor, populous northeast where 133 seats were contested, while Bangkok remained in the control of the People’s Party, reflecting Thailand’s political dividing lines.

The result is also a hammer blow to Pheu Thai, which lost much of its northeastern stronghold to Bhumjaithai.
But few ever rule out party patriarch Thaksin, the influential tycoon who has a history of unlikely comebacks and deals that break political assumptions.
He is currently in jail, with his sister Yingluck, Thailand’s first female prime minister, in self-exile overseas since 2014, and his daughter Paetongtarn – sacked from office in August last year over her handling of the Cambodia border dispute – also facing potential legal action.
Experts say legal woes could decide how Thaksin plays his hand post-election from the prison cell.
His nephew Yodchanan Wongsawat, an academic who is a political newcomer, was carrying the family’s banner into the election.
Additional reporting by Agence France-Presse


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Volunteers greet Thailand’s caretaker prime minister Anutin Charnvirakul, Bhumjaithai Party leader and prime ministerial candidate, in Buriram province during Sunday’s general election. Photo: Reuters

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Leader of People’s Party and prime ministerial candidate Natthaphong Ruengpanyawut attends an election campaign in Bangkok, Thailand, on Wednesday. Photo: AP

Thai caretaker prime minister and Bhumjaithai Party leader Anutin Charnvirakul campaigns for a general election at Chinatown in Bangkok, Thailand, on January 20. Photo: EPA

Pheu Thai party prime ministerial candidate Yodchanan Wongsawat during an election campaign in Bangkok, Thailand, on January 23. Photo: AP

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The Bhumjaithai Party is forecast to win nearly 200 seats as People’s Party concedes election


The Bhumjaithai Party is forecast to win nearly 200 seats as People’s Party concedes election.


Thailand election: conservatives storm to victory, led by Bhumjaithai Party’s Anutin

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}The Bhumjaithai Party is forecast to win nearly 200 seats as People’s Party concedes election

The Bhumjaithai Party is forecast to win nearly 200 seats as People’s Party concedes election