The rise of Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra and the return—and re-entry—of her father, Thaksin Shinawatra, have turned Thai politics upside down. On the surface, Thaksin still dominates Thai politics nearly 20 years after he was deposed by a military coup and exiled for most of that period. This time, his political power and influence are being exercised through his daughter Paetongtarn. As the Shinawatra clan has been coopted by its former establishment adversaries, the past two decades of periodic elections, street protests, two military coups, two constitutions, and multiple judicial bans on political parties and elected politicians have entered a new chapter.
At issue going forward will be the popular movement for Thailand’s structural reforms and institutional modernization as represented by the Prachachon (People’s) Party, the successor of the Move Forward Party dissolved earlier this month, and the Future Forward Party disbanded in February 2020. The conservative establishment’s predictable efforts to thwart the Prachachon Party, and its progressive forces demanding change and reform from below, will now dominate Thai politics ahead of the next election due in mid-2027.
As newly minted and Thailand’s youngest prime minister, Paetongtarn is a novice and newcomer who is unlikely to be naïve. She came of age when Thaksin was at the height of his power in the early 2000s. When a coup ousted him in September 2006, Paetongtarn, a political science undergraduate at Chulalongkorn University, came to campus accompanied by bodyguards. Such was the rabid hatred of her father at the time. She also would have been familiar with Thaksin’s political associates, patronage networks and business partners as the youngest daughter, who frequently tagged along with him.
The irony for her now is that her father has struck an alliance with the pro-military and establishment forces who booted him out—as well as her aunt Yingluck Shinawatra—in the 2006 and 2014 military takeovers. Moreover, Thaksin appears beholden with little leverage vis-à-vis his new political masters. After years of defiance and insistence on his innocence and how the coup against him was politically motivated, he has budged by accepting the corruption convictions and substantially reduced jail terms under cushy conditions. His position appears strong because his daughter is prime minister and his Pheu Thai Party is running the coalition government, but, in fact, Thaksin has never been politically weaker because whatever moral high ground he had from the coup years and mass appeal during that time has weakened almost beyond recognition, having lost an election for the first time last year and coming home under his adversaries’ apparent conditions.
While Paetongtarn will be prime minister, she will rely closely on her father to be the manager of the coalition government and overall powerbroker and troubleshooter. Thaksin will overshadow the new government, and his daughter will be its face. Regardless of her father’s helping hand, Paetongtarn will have her work cut out. The economy is in dire straits due to a lower growth trajectory and loss of competitiveness. Unlike two decades ago, when Thaksin was on top of the policymaking game, growth drivers, and regional dynamics, he appears out of date, while Paetongtarn conspicuously lacks policy experience.
While their Pheu Thai Party urgently needs to show policy deliverables to placate popular disenchantments, it will be hard-pressed as an establishment ally to come up with progressive policies needed to win back voters, such as tackling monopolies, decentralizing power, reforming the military, and reforming the monarchy. Joining forces with the conservative establishment also may further alienate Pheu Thai from its support base. If it faces the prospects of a bigger poll setback, it is conceivable that Pheu Thai may end up as a full-fledged pro-establishment party by the next election, going against a broadened Prachachon Party.
As the Paetongtarn government comes into place, it is likely that the division of cabinet portfolios along party quotas will mostly continue from the Srettha period. Coalition partners, such as Bhumjaithai, Palang Pracharath, and United Thai Nation parties, may bargain for more positions and lucrative posts. The signature policies from the 10,000-baht digital wallet scheme to boost consumption and a “land bridge” to link the Gulf of Thailand to the Andaman Sea to “soft power” projects and bilateral free-trade agreements that made little headway under Srettha will be a big early test for Paetongtarn and Thaksin.
If the 10,000-baht digital wallet is dropped or diluted, it will show a lack of policymaking mettle. The extent to which other policy programs go anywhere in the near term will also foretell the government’s policy prospects. The bottom line for the Thaksin-influenced government under Prime Minister Paetongtarn will likely revolve around whether it can come up with policy ideas that can be formulated and implemented to move the Thai economy up global value chains and lift growth trajectory and whether it will be given space to work and get things done. If court petitions against Paetongtarn and/or her father emerge—Thaksin is already under a royal defamation charge—then the new government may become ineffectual and off-balance like Srettha’s.
Having reset the political scene, it merits attention whether the royalist establishment will now want Thailand to move ahead, even incrementally, under the new Paetongtarn government. Or perhaps it may prefer to keep Pheu Thai weak, Thaksin and Paetongtarn precarious, the government off-balance, and the opposition Prachachon party hamstrung. Divide-and-rule with Thailand moving ahead to regain lost competitiveness is one thing, but keeping politics fractious and unstable and keeping the economy in the doldrums just to maintain power is something else.
Unlike in the past, Thailand is in uncharted waters as this establishment is increasingly exposed as an open political actor. Thaksin ultimately proved to be part of the establishment. The threat he posed by repeatedly winning polls so spectacularly was unwitting and unintended. The mass movement behind the Prachachon Party for fundamental structural reforms is what makes Thailand’s new political chapter very different from that in the recent past.
Thitinan Pongsudhirak is senior fellow at the Institute of Security and International Studies at Chulalongkorn University.
This article first appeared in The Bangkok Post.
