Opposition parties to the military junta in power since 2014 won parliamentary elections on Sunday in Thailand. In a particularly surprising result, the most voted party was the Phak Kao Klai (Let’s Go Forward): progressive, led by 42-year-old Pita Limjaroenrat, critical of the monarchy and the role of the army, in favor of a new constitution and very popular among young people. With 97 percent of the votes counted, Phak Kao Klai should win 151 of the 500 deputies in the lower house of Parliament.
The second most voted party was Pheu Thai, the third edition of the populist party founded by former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra: the founder’s daughter, Paetongtarn Shinawatra, was considered the big favorite for these elections. The two parties most closely linked to the military, including Palang Pracharath, of current prime minister and former general Prayut Chan-o-cha, together won about 15 percent of the vote. However, the role of the army will remain fundamental: according to the Constitution approved in 2017, military leaders will be able to nominate the 250 members of the Senate, who will choose the next prime minister together with the 500 deputies.
In the last twenty years in Thailand there has been a continuous opposition between the forces linked to the military and the monarchy and those of the exiled millionaire Thaksin Shinawatra: the governments of the latter and his sister, Yingluck, were ousted by two coups military, respectively in 2006 and 2014. After the last one, the military also wrote a draft of the new Constitution and in 2016 they submitted it to a referendum, however having those who proclaimed themselves against it and who had expressed their intention to vote against the new text.
The new Constitution was finally approved and entered into force in 2017.
Former general Prayuth Chan-o-cha, head of the last military junta, then returned to power in 2019 at the head of a formally “civilian” government, after elections contested by the opposition and thanks to the vote of the 250 senators appointed by the army .
Prime Minister and former general Prayuth Chan-o-cha (AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit)
The Phak Kao Klai of former Harvard student Pita Limjaroenrat is considered the heir of the New Future party, born in 2018 and dissolved by the military junta in 2020: the elimination of the more progressive opposition had been one of the regions of the great protests popular of 2020 and 2021, in which students and women played a fundamental role. The demonstrations for the first time also involved the institution of the monarchy and in particular the strict laws on the crime of “les majeste” which in Thailand punishes with sentences of up to 15 years in prison those found guilty of insulting King Maha Vajiralongkorn , also known as Rama X.
The Phak Kao Klai program foresees, among other things, precisely a revision of the laws regarding offenses against the monarchy, but also a strong reduction of the military’s power: it calls for the abolition of compulsory conscription, the reduction of the size and balance of the forces armies, the overcoming of the Constitution approved in 2017. Other requests for reform concern the economy, overcoming the heavy bureaucracy that slows down the country’s growth, the recognition of homosexual marriages and a minimum wage set at 13 dollars a day.
After the results, Limjaroenrat said he was “ready to become the new prime minister”, but his appointment is not automatic at the moment. His party, like Paetongtarn Shinawatra’s Pheu Thai, does not have enough votes in parliament to govern alone and will probably have to form an alliance in a coalition of forces that oppose the political power of the military. However, Pheu Thai and Phak Kao Klai are divided on many issues.
Paetongtarn Shinawatra, daughter of the founder of the Pheu Thai party (Photo by Lauren DeCicca/Getty Images)
It also remains to evaluate the reaction of the military junta in government for nine years: despite the clear electoral defeat and the very low support received from the population, its power in Thailand remains great: a new coup is considered unlikely by analystsbut the military will still try to oppose the change with the ample means guaranteed to them by the latest Constitution.