Ken | Mathis Lohatepanont

Abstract: In 2025, Thailand’s political leadership changed once again with the appointment of Anutin Charnvirakul as prime minister, its third in as many years. The revolving door of prime ministers is symptomatic of its fragile post-2023 governing arrangements, which are now stress-tested to the point of collapse. Anutin’s elevation was made possible only after the fall of a Pheu Thai Party (PTP) government that, despite various political and economic challenges, had not been in a state of terminal decline until hostilities unexpectedly broke out with de facto Cambodian leader Hun Sen’s clan. All of this took place amid other turmoil—both domestic and international—such as the imprisonment of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and global economic uncertainty stemming from US trade policy. This chapter examines a year of political chaos and unexpected compromise, where events snowballed to the point that Thailand’s first minority government, led by the Bhumjaithai (BJT) party, was able to materialize. It also analyses the economic and diplomatic challenges that bedevilled the Pheu Thai administration and which have continued to plague the BJT government.

Executive Summary:

• The grand compromise, forged at the elite level between Thailand’s conservative establishment and Thaksin Shinawatra’s Pheu Thai Party, could lead many Thai voters to shift their party allegiance in the next general election.
• Based on attitudes towards the establishment and Thaksin, Thailand’s electorate can be classified into four broad groups: traditional conservatives, reconciliatory conservatives, populist reformists, and progressive reformists.
• The People’s Party (formerly Move Forward) is likely to remain the preferred choice of progressive reformists, as the party neither took part in the grand compromise nor shifted its position on core issues that matter to its constituents.
• Among all voter segments, traditional conservatives and populist reformists are likely to feel most alienated by their parties of choice in 2023 for joining a coalition that runs counter to both their campaign pledges and their constituents’ preferences.
• As traditional conservatives and populist reformists reassess their political allegiances in response to a coalition that betrays their stances, the party system may be due for a realignment.

Executive Summary:

• After the 2023 general election, the Pheu Thai Party agreed to a grand compromise with the conservative parties, allowing Pheu Thai candidate Srettha Thavisin to take office as prime minister.
• A new strategic triangle of progressives, conservatives, and Thaksinites has locked Pheu Thai and the former members of the conservative Prayut Chan-o-cha coalition into a marriage of convenience.
• Mapping Thailand’s political parties based on their stance on the status quo and the extent to which they successfully mobilised votes through nationally programmatic or localist strategies, makes it possible to illustrate the nature of Pheu Thai’s shift in
  political position.
• Thailand’s party system is likely to remain destabilised as the shift in Pheu Thai’s political brand may produce major changes in voter linkages to the party

Abstract: In this article, we revisit Anek Laothamatas’s influential 1992 model that framed Thai politics as a divide between middle-class Bangkok voters and poorer rural voters in the provinces. Drawing on evidence from Thailand’s 2023 General Elections, we both challenge and offer an updated perspective on this longstanding urban-rural divide paradigm. Our research reveals a significant degree of convergence in political preferences and voting behavior between Bangkok and the provinces, calling into question the validity of Anek’s model. However, a more nuanced picture emerges at the subnational level when we extend our analysis beyond the Bangkok-provinces dichotomy. Using population density as a measure of urbanization, we demonstrate that a clear distinction in political preferences persists between densely populated urban areas—whether in Bangkok or the provinces—and sparsely populated rural areas. The urban-rural divide remains salient, but in a different form from that originally proposed by Anek.

Executive Summary:

• Thailand’s Bhumjaithai Party-led government appointed several outsiders seen as possessing technocratic expertise to the cabinet in order to fill gaps in party policy expertise and increase the party’s electoral appeal.
• On the surface, Bhumjaithai’s technocratic turn resembles a return to 20th-century practices of utilising technocrats in key governing positions; there are, however, several critical differences that may limit the efficacy of the current set of technocrats.
• Thailand’s current developmental needs and other structural factors make it unlikely for the presence of a small number of technocrats in the cabinet to make a decisive difference to Thailand’s policy trajectory.