BANGKOK – Thailand’s tilt towards more conservative politics in last weekend’s elections reveals as much about the dynamics of local power brokers as it does about the failure of the main progressive party to penetrate its message beyond urban centres.
Bhumjaithai Party leader Anutin Charnvirakul comfortably won Sunday’s election, securing more than 190 of Thailand’s 500-seat parliament, according to unofficial tallies from the Election Commission of Thailand (ECT).
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ECT has 60 days to verify the results, but Anutin is wasting no time.
By Tuesday, his attention had already shifted to forming a coalition government with himself as prime minister, as his electoral rivals had to dig through the debris of a failed campaign.
The Kuomintang’s reform wing, which targets young people, was widely expected to win the largest number of seats and the largest share of votes.
However, according to the ECT website, it won just 118 seats, several dozen fewer than it won in the 2023 elections. The drop in approval ratings appears to suggest that the public is moving away from the People’s Party’s calls for structural reforms in Thailand’s economy and politics.
The vote appears to have shifted to the camp of Anutin, a nationalist who represents the interests of the country’s political and economic elites.
Politics of “Baan Yai” (Big House)
Allegations of vote-buying and other voting irregularities in close constituency races are growing, but even People’s Party leader Nattaporn Ruempanyawut said it would not have been significant enough to change the overall outcome.
Instead, Nattaphon tearfully apologized in a television interview to the party’s faithful and MPs who lost their seats.
“I’m sad about how it turned out… but despite these tears, I’m committed to continuing to work for people,” the 38-year-old said.
Analysts and political insiders told Al Jazeera that the KMT’s decline in voters, except in the capital Bangkok and its surrounding urban areas, as well as the northern city of Chiang Mai, points to a deeper reality in Thai politics that remains insurmountable for reformers.
Experts say the first of those obstacles is political patronage, which is based on promises of future favors.
Powerful political dynasties, known in Thai as “Baan Yai” (big house), are rooted throughout the country, especially in Chonburi, Buriram, and Sisaket provinces.
Baan Yai joined forces under Anutin’s Bumjatai Party and brought their supporters to block the People’s Party on voting day.
“It’s been like this for a really long time,” said an aide to one of the most prominent political dynasties.
“In Bangkok, we think of MPs as MPs, but we think of them as village chiefs, people who go out and bat for us,” said the aide, who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
“This is the person you meet every day. This is the person who will solve your problems,” the aide added.
“It’s the only safety net they have.”
Khemthorn Thongsakrunluang, a constitutional law scholar at Bangkok’s Chulalongkorn University, said the People’s Party may have made a strategic mistake by failing to “combat Baan Yai’s entrenched influence” with local voters.
“With resources so scarce, people in rural areas do not view parliamentarians as representatives in the civil sense of the word, but instead see them as ‘clan leaders,'” Kemton explained.
“They remain locked into this sponsorship system because it is effectively the only safety net they have,” he said.
Thailand’s last election in 2023 delivered a shocking warning to some dynasties in Chiang Mai and Chonburi, as they could not expect young voters to respect Ban Yai’s influence at the polls.
That year, after nine years of military rule under former army chief Prayut Chan-o-cha, the so-called “orange wave” surged behind the strong pro-democracy and reform message of the People’s Party’s predecessor, the Forward Party.
Move Forward won that election but was quickly dissolved as a political party by a court over its intention to reform Thailand’s strict royal defamation laws, which protect Thailand’s powerful monarchy from criticism.
Forward rose from the ashes and was reborn as the People’s Party. But the movement has struggled to regroup across Thailand as its front-line leaders have been ousted from politics, another reason why the party failed to gain support in last weekend’s polls.
It seems that history repeats itself.
Just 24 hours after polling stations were closed, Thailand’s National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) sent a petition to the Supreme Court seeking the expulsion of 44 People’s Party MPs, including Nataporn, from politics.
The Supreme Court’s decision could result in permanent banishment for progressive lawmakers and is the latest legal blow to that momentum.
Nationalism also played a large role in Anutin’s victory, especially in the wake of the recent border war with neighboring Cambodia.
Bhumjaithai positioned itself as a party that supported the military during the conflict and viewed its political opponents as less capable of defending the country.
“Politicians are buying the poverty of rural people.”
As election analysts now assess the results, Ban Yai’s return appears to have been paramount to Anutin’s decisive victory, as traditional political power brokers rallied around Bhumjaitai’s conservative credentials and refrained from splitting the vote that would have favored the progressive camp.
“According to the Election Commission, turnout is at a historic low of 65% in the past 30 years,” said Prinya Thewanarmitkul, a Thai political expert and academic at Bangkok’s Thammasat University.
“If the voting rate is low, the “organized vote” [mobilised supporters] And the influence of “Baan Yai” will be the deciding factor,” he said.
Preliminary results showed Bhumjaithai made significant gains in central and northeastern Thailand, as well as its southernmost border with Malaysia, winning many seats with support from political families who publicly expressed support for Anutin before the vote.
In addition to declining support for reformists and MPs losing seats, the vote leaves many Gen Z supporters confused as to why people didn’t choose to change Thailand for the better. They wonder why their compatriots seem to be throwing their support behind conservatism rather than change, especially as Thailand’s economic slowdown has pushed the poor further behind the rich.
For Alshikin Sinthorn, a 22-year-old People’s Party voter who lives in Pattani, a Muslim-majority border province in southern Thailand, the reasons lie in money, politics and rural poverty.
“Ban Yai politicians are buying the poverty of rural people. This is the game,” Alushkin told Al Jazeera.
“But they can’t buy the urban population anymore, because we are already awake,” she said.
Analysts say the return of political dynasties as power brokers reflects the systemic poverty that remains in many rural areas of Thailand.
In almost every election in Thailand, the northeast, north and south lean toward political dynasties and populist promises, they say.
“The country is fundamentally divided by resource allocation,” said Chulalongkorn University’s Chemthong.
“Younger generations have managed to break out of these patronage networks,” Kemthong said, referring to the urban voters who form the People’s Party’s support base in places like Bangkok.
“They have the luxury of speaking out against it because they have broken out of a system that still shackles those left behind,” he added.
