A done deal?

A Thai Newsroom report refers to 75 year-old Chirmsak Pinthong as “an independent academic,” and comments on his statements regarding the upcoming election.

Let’s be clear on one point, Chirmsak is not an “academic.” He’s a television personality. To refer to him as an academic demeans real academics. That said, his television role gives him plenty of inside political information.

The “story” is about a “former Bhumjaithai party-listed MP” Supachai Jaisamut, who has “angrily criticised” Chirmsak.

Supachai’s “criticism” of Chirmsak is for declaring “that the formation of the next government after the Feb. 8 general election had been prearranged to ensure that Caretaker Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul continues to stay at the helm with the country remaining in a precarious situation…”.

Supachai said Chirmsak’s commentary was “harsh and defamatory and damaged both Anutin and his camp while possibly negatively impacting the upcoming election.” He reckons that Chirmsak  has a “hidden political bias.”

A younger Chirmsak

This may be faux criticism. After all, Chirmsak has a reputation as a rightist and anti-democrat. He is a royalist who was with the People’s Alliance for Democracy – Yellow Shirts – in 2006 and 2008, and with the People’s Democratic Reform Committee in 2013–14. He was a junta-appointed member of the Constitution Drafting Assembly in 2007. In 2012, Chirmsak supported the ultra-royalist Siam Samakkhi group, joining with a range of royalists including Tul Sitthisomwong and Kaewsan Atibhodhi when they cheered two thugs who had beaten up a reformist academic. In other words, Chirmsak is an insider.

Harking back to earlier criticisms he had made of electoral politics, Chirmsak added that “change will be difficult with the patronage system still holding sway in the country and powerful ‘Big House’ families still controlling the political landscape…”. As we have said previously, this is a “design feature” of the junta’s 2017 constitution. Chirmsak has to take some of the blame for that outcome.

Supachai reckons that Chirmsak needs to clarify his remarks because “in principle no individual or group can pre-determine election results on behalf of the people…”.

As we know from 2023, election results can be manipulated when coalitions are negotiated. Indeed, those manipulations continued even after a coalition was formed, with two prime ministers and one government ousted before Anutin gained the premier’s position.

And, then there is Chirmsak’s use of the term “patronage system.” Is this the same terminology used by Jakrapob Penkair in his speech at Bangkok’s Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Thailand (Jakrapob at the FCCT) on 29 August 2007? Probably not as he’s more attuned to the military junta’s version or the Democrat Party perspective.

In the end, though, it seems that Chirmsak is simply pointing to the rightist preference for the gangster government and its patronage system over any progressive alternative.

The royal patronage bestowed on Anutin is well known, and while King Vajiralongkorn’s New Year address is pretty much standard fare, the king’s observations on 2025 might be read as a call to support Anutin.

The king observed: “there have been several matters of concern, such as volatile and tense international situations in various parts of the world, as well as severe natural disasters. When these occurred, they revealed problems and obstacles in various areas that significantly affected the lives and well-being, as well as the morale and spirits, of us all.” His call for “unity” will be seen as a call for the royalist unity that Anutin and his gangsters provide.