Thailand’s election season is notorious for bringing out a tsunami of election banners that are stuck on every possible tree and electrical pole. But in the past election, a voter might be forgiven for feeling lost while trying to digest this potentially rich source of information for voter preferences. Thailand’s 2023 banners were interesting because…

Thailand’s scores on the OECD’s Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) exams, which measure reading, mathematical skills, and science knowledge in 15-year olds have never been strong. In 2019, Thailand’s PISA scores ranked 66th among 79 countries. It reflects an education system that everyone knows is broken and that no one has been able to…

The chosen slogan that Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin has adopted for his administration is “Chance of Possibility.” In English it is an awkward slogan, to say the least. In Thai it is slightly better: “this is the opportunity for every possibility.”  In his first few months, however, one possibility has seemed to have little opportunity…

In the lead-up to the 2023 general election, the Pheu Thai Party had campaigned on the slogan kid yai, tum pen, pheu Thai took khon. The official translation of this slogan was think big, act smart, for all Thais.  We have an abundance of evidence now that Pheu Thai and its predecessors were capable of…

There are facts that, by this time, are no longer new to Thai society.  Thailand, despite supposedly strict gun control laws, still has high firearm ownership rates due to the illegal trade. Mass shootings are rare, but gun violence itself not particularly so. These facts are repeated in news articles every time there is a…

On 22 August 2023, former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra returned to Thailand after 15 years in self-exile. He was taken straight into custody from the airport to serve out a sentence for previous corruption convictions. A little over a week later, Thaksin submitted a request for a royal pardon, which was granted in the form…

On September 10, the Move Forward Party won a stomping victory in the byelection for Rayong’s third constituency. The MFP candidate, Phongsathorn Sornpetchnarin, won almost 60 percent of the votes cast, while the Democrat candidate, Banyat Chetanachan, won around 40 percent.  The Move Forward victory came despite what seemed like the party’s best efforts to…

There are few events in Thailand that could possibly overshadow the election of a new prime minister. The return of a former prime minister from his self-imposed time in exile is one of them.  Thaksin Shinawatra was gone for fifteen years, but in many ways it never really felt like he had left. Even as…