Puea Thai’s expiration

Treethep Srisa-nga is a PhD student in Political Science at the University of Florida and has contributed an op-ed for Singapore’s Fulcrum.

In “Pheu Thai Party’s Identity Crisis: A Brand in Peril?” Treethep begins:

To ensure its survival, the party allied with the conservative establishment and compromised on benchmark policies. But if voters fail to recognise its dedication to reform or economic benefits, it risks perishing before the 2027 elections.

From PPT’s position, Puea Thai expired as a reformist party with Thaksin Shinawatra’s betrayal of his party’s 2023 election campaign promises in a deal with the establishment, negotiated with palace flunkies.

Photo clipped from NZZ

Treethep digs deeper. He reckons that the party’s “identity … is grounded in redistributive policies, institutional reforms, democratic credibility, and the Shinawatras’ charisma.”

All of these are crushed by the alliance parlayed by Thaksin and his reorientation and apparent reconciliation with many who’d been his sworn enemies.

As Treethep sees it, Puea Thai’s “democratic credibility” – which underpins the other three party “pillars,” has been stripped away in its dealings with its enemies-now-friends:

PT’s democratic credentials are vanishing, even when considering the limits imposed by its conservative-royalist coalition. Since PT returned to power in 2023, the coercive machinery that the party once denounced continues unabated. By 2024, prosecutions under the lèse-majesté law exceeded 270 active cases…. The PT-led government’s human rights record abroad is no less troubling. In February, Bangkok quietly deported 40 Uighur asylum-seekers to China. Although PT brandishes its runner-up mandate from 2023 as democratic legitimacy, such episodes strip away its claim as Thailand’s foremost democracy champion.

The recent capitulation to the military on the Cambodian border is yet another very public example of credibility draining away.

Of course, Puea Thai is not dead yet, but it continues to exist as a virtual puppet of its former enemies and at their whim. Those forces may only await the further neutering of the People’s Party before moving on to the Puea Thai carcass.