Updated: The war on reform

Despite ongoing claims of maladministration on the part of the supposedly independent Election Commission, it seems that the result is going to be confirmed. This is not unexpected. As we mentioned in a previous post, the series of failures, anomalies and unexplained voting outcomes attributed to the junta-era EC may have been a part of a wider organized effort to move votes to conservative parties. However, that seems unlikely to have moved the result hugely.

The EC is hopelessly incompetent. It is meant to be, with the junta designing it to support conservatives in regaining electoral control. It has played its part, supporting conservative parties while having reformists banned and their parties dissolved. As recently seen, like the complaints about Senate selections, the EC is ignoring complaints – even suing some complainants – and has confirmed the election results for most seats.

Getting the conservatives elected has been a 20+ year effort by the establishment to finally manipulate an election outcome that allows it to claim that a conservative party has really won an election. As commentator Thitinan Pongsudhirak recently observed: “Since the Thaksin [Shinawatra] challenge burst onto the scene in the early 2000s, the whole Thai political game has been about resisting this juggernaut, and resisting progress and reform of the establishment…”.

Against popular support for reform, Thailand’s establishment has taken a different political direction. Thitinan states: “The royalist conservative establishment have a way of seeing off challenges… The Thaksin challenge was about populism and redistribution. The next challenge was not just about income redistribution; it was about structural reforms of institutions that run Thailand.” For the time being, that’s also been seen off.

Greg Raymond at East Asia Forum is explicit on Thailand’s conservative near future:

Thailand’s 8 February election delivered victory to Anutin Charnvirakul and lifted Bhumjaithai from coalition broker to the centre of power. The result reflects a political system built on patronage and palace-friendly bargaining. Under these conditions, structural reforms are unlikely, with constitutional change facing legal setbacks, contested drafting processes and a conservative Senate. The likely outcome is relative political stability under a more entrenched form of authoritarian rule in Thailand, at the expense of much-needed political, social and economic reforms.

He also comments on expanding corruption: “Anutin’s victory coincided with the release of Transparency International’s 2025 Corruption Perceptions Index, which rated Thailand below Laos and Vietnam.”

It would appear that the cost of getting a conservative regime in place has been exceptionally high. Here, PPT is not referring to vote-buying. Rather, we are pointing to the years of buying support among parties,tycoons, provincial bosses, senior bureaucrats, the military and police, in corrupted institutions, and more, going right to the very top. That’s why “grey capital” has been so significant. Corruption on this scale is undermining politics, society and economy.

That’s what the conservative war on reform, in the name of the monarchy, has delivered.

Update: A reader made a couple of points to us. The first was that Thitinan had a useful article at Project Syndicate. A second was out that there have been tons of articles referring to the conservative turn in Thailand’s politics (see here and here). But, that reader insists – and we agree – the progressives are not dead and buried. Two articles are worth reading on this (especially here and also here). One important result from the election is the party list, where the most votes – over 9 million – went to the People’s Party. This number almost doubles the result for both Bhum Jai Thai and Puea Thai.