Ken | Mathis Lohatepanont

As important as the recent decision by the Electoral Commission to seek a dissolution of the Move Forward Party is, it is not surprising in the least.

If anything, this decision had seemed inevitable after the ruling by the Constitutional Court that the Move Forward Party, by calling for an amendment of the lèse-majesté law, sought to overthrow the democratic system of government with the King as head of state. Whether or not one agrees with that ruling, once this conclusion was reached there appeared to be little leeway for the Electoral Commission: political parties in Thailand have been dissolved for less.

Yet exactly because parties have been dissolved in Thailand so many times in the past twenty years, we know almost exactly how things will play out if Move Forward is to be dissolved.

Click here to read the full piece at Thai Enquirer.

Of the policies that the various political parties campaigned on during the 2023 general election in Thailand, one that especially raised my eyebrow was Pheu Thai’s “One Family, One Soft Power” policy. It described a proposal where at least one family member from every household have the chance to enter a “creative skills incubation center” at no cost. 

The merits of such a policy can be debated. The name, on the other hand, is to me unambiguously bad. It is confusing. It misuses a key term. And it hints at a deeper problem: a lack of conceptual clarity on what “soft power” is and how it can best be harnessed.

When a word catches fire in Thai bureaucratese, it becomes virtually inescapable. Soft power is the latest instance. It was first promoted under the Prayut Chan-o-cha administration, which announced that it would prioritize support for the “5Fs”: food, film, fashion, fighting, and festivals. Under the Srettha Thavisin government, use of this term has proliferated even further. The government has now set up a National Soft Power Strategy Committee headed by the prime minister and Paethongtharn Shinawatra. 

Not all is well with the government’s soft power strategy. In December, a survey revealed that sixty percent of respondents do not understand the government’s “One Family, One Soft Power” policy. Just a few weeks ago, the entire Fashion Subcommittee of the Soft Power National Strategy Committee appointed by the government resigned en masse. Meanwhile, even Prime Minister Srettha himself has said that the committee should review its request 5.1 billion baht to fund its proposed projects. And Pheu Thai’s desire to create a Thailand Creative Content Agency (THACCA) appears confusing when a Creative Economy Agency already exists.

But first things first. Everything now appears to be ‘soft power’ according to the government. Mango sticky rice? Yes, soft power. Elephant pants? Definitely soft power. Lisa wearing Thai dress in a music video? Soft power indeed! When everything is soft power, what in the world even is soft power? 

Click here to read the full piece at Thai Enquirer.

Political tensions in Thailand have escalated following a court ruling that could potentially lead to the dissolution of the Move Forward Party over charges stemming from its campaign to amend the country’s lèse majesté law. (Co-authored with Dr. Napon Jatusripitak)

Click here to read the full piece at Fulcrum.

Back in October, Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin argued that he does not merely want people to see him as a prime minister, but as a businessman. “I’m a salesman. I have to sell Thailand’s great products and build investors’ confidence. It’s my duty and mission as the No 1 salesman of the country,” he told a forum hosted by Krungthep Turakij. 

The “national salesman” personal branding is not necessarily a new concept. Indeed, it was most recently used by former commerce minister Jurin Laksanawisit in the previous government. What does feel new, of course, is the intense focus that any prime minister has given on being the salesman. Former prime minister Prayut Chan-o-cha was temperamentally unsuited to the role, and in the past nine years he did not make his presence on the international stage felt. Srettha’s proclivity towards being a national salesman is something that can be welcomed.

It is unfortunate, then, that in this early stage of his tenure, Srettha has already seemingly made one mistake that has damaged his ability to be an effective national salesman. 

Click here to read the full piece at Thai Enquirer.

In a new article published in Contemporary Southeast Asia, Prof. Allen Hicken, Dr. Napon Jatusripitak and I take a new look at Dr. Anek Laothamatas’ famous theory of Thailand being “a tale of two democracies.”

Rural and urban voters have now converged in significant ways, but there is still a distinct divide between densely populated urban areas and sparsely populated rural areas. Thailand’s constituencies have become similar to fried eggs, with the egg yolks and egg whites behaving differently.

A snippet of our findings: Using population density as a proxy for urbanization, we found that support for candidates affiliated with different parties are strongly correlated with the degree of urbanization at the constituency level.

Voters in more densely populated urban areas were much more likely to support the MFP compared to voters in rural areas, while support for Pheu Thai and Bhumjaithai was strongest in more rural constituencies.

Read the full piece in Contemporary Southeast Asia’s December volume. This volume contains a roundtable on the 2023 elections.

When Prayut Chan-o-cha was prime minister, he penned at least ten singles. None, of course, was more famous than his debut with “Returning Happiness to the People,” a song that was endlessly played on the airwaves in the aftermath of the 2014 military coup. 

His other singles garnered relatively little attention. One of those relatively neglected songs was a piece called ‘Saphan’ (“Bridge”), which was apparently inspired by one of Prayut’s favorite songs, ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’ by Simon & Garfunkel. “I’m ready to be a bridge,” the lyrics go, “so that you can cross over to the endpoint you dreamed of.” 

The endpoint that Prayut was thinking about probably did not quite align with what eventually ended up transpiring. The Prayut era was meant to be the fortification of one particular conservative vision of Thai politics: a new era where the unpredictable pressures of democracy could be guided and channeled towards predetermined paths. One where corrupt politicians could be permanently contained and prevented from ever taking the reins of power. 

The 2023 election results have led to a major rethink of these goals.

Click here to read the full piece at Thai Enquirer.

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 they often contained photos not only of a local candidate but also of the party’s prime ministerial candidate. In addition, the banners displayed a dizzying array of numbers — mostly sums of money attached to the various policies the parties were proposing. In short, the posters contained a dizzying array of information that demonstrated how the political parties were attempting to sell their brands and differentiate themselves from the competition.

But how successful were the different parties at communicating their brands to the public? To what extent were voters actually able to remember and distinguish the political parties and their policies? This is not simply a theoretical question; after all, clear party brands allow for stronger and more meaningful attachments to voters as they are better able to discern whether they can identify with that party (Lupu 2017), and policy differentiation only aids voter decision making (Lupia and McCubbins 2000) to the extent voters correctly perceive those differences. To investigate these questions, we administered a survey in Thailand a month after the election asking voters to match key components of each party’s campaign with the correct political party.

Click here to read the full piece at Thai Data Points.

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 fix.

Given the tedium of seeing Thailand do terribly on the PISA exams time and time again, this year’s scores should have come as no surprise. Across all sections, Thai students performed poorly, ranking below several ASEAN peers such as Vietnam and Malaysia. But this year, the results have certainly sparked a fair amount of national uproar. 

Click here to read the full piece at Thai Enquirer.

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 to become true: that Srettha would be able to make a breakthrough in public opinion. The prime minister came to office essentially without a honeymoon period. The protracted and unseemly process in which his party had to deny Move Forward’s claim to power ensured that Srettha would not emerge unscathed from these proceedings. 

It was unsurprising, then, that Srettha and the Pheu Thai Party would focus their recent report on Srettha’s first 60 days in office on a series of “quick wins.” Energy bills were quickly lowered, reduced train tickets were trialled, Visa-free travel for more foreign nationals was implemented to jumpstart tourism.

Many of these quick wins to alleviate financial burden were important, to be sure, although the sustainability of some of these policies in the long-run are questionable. But Srettha is already arriving at a new challenge of his own making: the 10,000 baht handout policy that the Pheu Thai Party had trumpeted as its signature policy pledge during the election.

Click here to read the full piece at Thai Enquirer.