As Thailand prepares to vote in a national general election on Sunday, a months-long border dispute with Cambodia continues to cast a shadow over the election process.
Brief but deadly armed clashes on a disputed border between Thailand and Cambodia in May last year escalated into the deadliest fighting between the two countries in a decade, leaving dozens dead and hundreds of thousands displaced.
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In the aftermath of the conflict, the government of Thai Prime Minister Pethuntarn Shinawatra, daughter of billionaire populist leader Thaksin Shinawatra, collapsed and Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul took over in September.
Although the fighting may be over now, the conflict remains an emotional topic for Thais, analysts say, and a way for Mr. Anutin to rally support for his conservative Bhumjathai party as a no-nonsense prime minister who is not afraid to use the country’s military power if necessary.
“Mr Anutin’s party is positioning itself as a party that seriously takes the lead in the border dispute,” said Napon Jatulipitak, a Thai politics expert at Singapore’s ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute.
“We are the party with the strongest stance on this issue and the most hawkish,” Napon said of the recent military operations.
Mr. Anutin had good reason to focus his campaign on the conflict with Cambodia. While the fighting sparked a rise in nationalist sentiment in Thailand during two rounds of armed conflict in July and December, the clash also caused reputational damage to Anutin’s rivals in Thai politics.
On the political battlefield, the party hardest hit was the populist Pro-Thai Party, the power base of former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and his family.
The Thai Contribution Party suffered a major blow to its popularity in June when a telephone conversation between its leader, then-Thai Prime Minister Pethunthaan, and Cambodian political powerhouse Hun Sen was made public.
According to Reuters, in a phone conversation on June 15, Petonthan referred to his father’s former friend Hun Sen as “uncle” and promised to “deal with” the issue after the first clashes between Thai and Cambodian forces.
To factions of Thai politics and the Thai people, Mr. Petunthaan’s deference to Mr. Hun Sen went beyond acceptable behavior for a prime minister, especially since it also appeared to be critical of Thailand’s military, the main center of power in a country of more than 70 million people.
Prime Minister Hun Sen later admitted to leaking the calls, claiming it was for “transparency,” but it led to the collapse of the Petuntan government. She was then removed by the Constitutional Court at the end of August last year, paving the way for Anutin to be elected as Thailand’s leader in a parliamentary vote the following month.
Neil Loughlin, an expert on comparative politics at City St George’s, University of London, said the border conflict with Cambodia was giving the Thai military a major boost amid “growing public dissatisfaction with the military’s involvement in politics and with conservative elites”.
Anutin’s government focused on sending a political message when border fighting flared up in early December. A few days later, he dissolved parliament to prepare for elections.
“Bumjaithai leans toward sending out a patriotic, nationalistic message,” said Japhet Quitzen, an associate fellow in the Southeast Asia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C.
“Anutin himself pledged to defend the country at election rallies, signaling his strength amid ongoing tensions with Cambodia. He has vowed to retaliate if the conflict flares up again and will continue to protect Thailand’s territorial integrity,” Quitthorn said.
“Battle against the fraud army”
During the fighting, Thailand seized control of several disputed areas on the border and shelled Cambodian casino facilities near the border, claiming they were being used by the Cambodian military.
Bangkok then claimed that some of the casino complexes associated with Cambodian elites were being used as hubs for online fraud, known as cyber fraud, a major problem in the region, and that the Thai military was also based in Cambodia to “fight an army of fraudsters”.
The World Health Organization estimates that the conflict killed 18 civilians in Cambodia and 16 in Thailand, but before the two countries signed an updated ceasefire in late December, media outlets put the overall death toll closer to 149.
Although the fighting has paused for now, its effects continue to affect Thai politics as a whole, said Napon of the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute.
The Thai People’s Party, still reeling from the leak of a phone conversation between Pethunthan and Hun Sen, has forced Thailand’s other opposition party, the People’s Party, to soften some of its long-standing positions calling for military reform, Naphon said.
“[The People’s Party] “Napon has vowed to abolish conscription and cut the military budget, but the border conflict with Cambodia has boosted the military’s popularity to heights not seen in more than a decade since the 2014 coup,” Napon told Al Jazeera.
“Military reform used to be the main selling point, but post-conflict it seems to have become a burden,” Napon continued.
The party has now shifted its criticism of specific generals from the military as an institution and returned its focus to boosting the economy, which is expected to grow by just 1.8% this year, according to state-run Krungthai Bank.
Napon said that message seemed to be getting through over the past two weeks, with the National Party once again leading in the polls despite a different platform than in 2023.
“It’s going to be very different than the last election,” Napon said.
“There is no military involvement at this point, and it is truly a battle between old and new,” he added.
