BANGKOK – Topsy-turvy Thailand finally has a new government, a largely pre-ordained configuration built in the name of national reconciliation that nominally unites old foes while perilously pushing a potent new progressive force to the opposition sidelines.
To announce the historic reset, coup-toppled and criminally convicted ex-premier Thaksin Shinawatra dramatically returned to the kingdom today (August 22) after 15 years in self-exile nominally to begin serving a decade in prison on three separate criminal corruption convictions.
The tenacious ex-telecom tycoon, now 74 and reportedly with health issues, is widely expected to receive lenient treatment, including a potential royal pardon that if granted could serve as the capstone of a wider unspoken deal with the future protection of the monarchy at its core.
In that direction, parliament elected Peua Thai’s Srettha Thavisin as the 11-party coalition’s prime minister, a vote that saw enough of the military-appointed, 249-member Senate choose the ex-property tycoon despite rising allegations of corrupt land deals involving his Sansiri company and tax evasion that could hobble his premiership from the start.
Srettha’s rise ends months of political jockeying after the May 9 election, which the upstart, anti-military and monarchy-challenging Move Forward Party won but failed to form a government over its insistence on amending the royal insult law, known as 112, and its prime ministerial candidate Pita Limjaroenrat’s reputedly illegal media shareholdings.
The second-placing Peua Thai later abandoned Move Forward and invited the military-aligned Palang Pracharat and United Thai Nation, and conservative-leaning Bhumjaithai, to get the numbers and conservative support needed to win over the Senate, which blocked Pita’s bid but whose power to vote for the premier expires next May.
While Peua Thai has portrayed the accommodation of its past military nemesis as necessary for “stability”, there was widespread speculation well before the May 9 poll – which the party had predicted it would win in a “landslide” – that Thaksin and royalist generals had a behind-the-scenes “reconciliation” deal in the works.
The negotiated settlement was reportedly discussed in a meeting between Thaksin and palace Deputy Lord Chamberlain and ex-army commander General Apirat Kongsompong on Malaysia’s Langkawi island – a secret confab in early May widely reported in the local press and confirmed to Asia Times by several Bangkok-based diplomats.
Those same diplomats and other local observers point to at least three pre-election meetings between Pojaman Na Pombejra, Thaksin’s ex-wife and behind-the-scenes Peua Thai powerbroker, and top palace officials at which the “unity” government deal was reportedly discussed.
Both Thaksin’s Peua Thai (141 seats) and the military’s Palang Pracharat (40) and United Thai Nation (36) join political forces from positions of relative weakness after Move Forward’s (151) shock election win, which saw it take 35 of 36 seats in often conservative-leaning Bangkok and cut into Peua Thai’s geographical strongholds.
Move Forward voted against Srettha on the grounds his assembled coalition would inevitably perpetuate military interests, a no doubt fair critique. A widely circulated but unconfirmed list of Cabinet portfolios showed PPRP receiving the coveted defense and interior ministries while UTN gets energy, in line no doubt with the party’s Gulf Energy billionaire CEO sponsor’s interests.
Peua Thai claimed, perhaps disingenuously, upon the coalition’s announcement that all parties support its agendas and campaign vows, including a populist digital wallet scheme that will gift each Thai 10,000 baht, a near doubling of the daily minimum wage to 600 baht by 2027, and fast, democratic amendment of the military’s 2018 constitution.
The US$16 billion digital wallet policy, true to Thaksin’s populist tradition and anathema to conservatives who have long railed against Peau Thai’s give-away spending schemes that pander to the poor, would require legal amendment of current deficit spending limits to fully implement.
Some thus already anticipate intense intra-coalition infighting over policies, resources and ideology, raising early doubts about the Srettha government’s ability to tackle key economic issues bearing down on the kingdom, ranging from precariously high household debt, lingering financial distress from the pandemic and flagging competitiveness amid accelerating demographic decline.
But the bigger, more consequential question is whether Peua Thai will do the conservative establishment’s bidding against Move Forward, which a recent local opinion poll showed would sweep if new elections were held now. A separate poll over the weekend showed the Peua Thai-military tie-up is already widely unpopular.
Analysts and diplomats believe Move Forward faces possible dissolution in early 2024 on pending accusations its hard drive to amend or even abolish 112 was tantamount to trying to topple the monarchy and thus seditious under Thai law.
There are already murmurs of new political rules in the offing that would effectively bar the rump of a banned Move Forward from quickly reconfiguring under a new party banner, as it did after the dissolution of its predecessor Future Forward in 2020.
The irony of Peua Thai’s overt or tacit support for such moves would be rich after various incarnations of Thaksin’s original Thai Rak Thai electoral juggernaut were dissolved by conservative-backed agencies and courts for various suspect reasons since the original 2006 coup that toppled Thaksin and drove him into self-exile.
The other irony, of course, is that Thaksin was widely and frequently accused by conservatives of being a threat to the crown – a charge he consistently denied despite the known anti-monarchy elements in his inner and outer circles. He and his Peau Thai are now well-positioned to serve as protectors, rather than disruptors, of the monarchy.
It was lost on few observers that Thaksin’s first act upon arriving at Bangkok’s Don Muang Airport today (August 22) was to prostrate himself before a massive yellow-bordered portrait of King Maha Vajiralongkorn and Queen Suthida, with at least two royal pins prominent on his suit jacket’s lapel.
One social media post noted they were the exact same pins recently worn by Vajiralongkorn’s estranged second son Vacharaesorn Vivacharawongse, who likewise recently returned to Thailand after 23 years abroad amid feverish speculation he may be rehabilitated to play a key monarchical role or even be groomed as a potential heir to the throne.
But he also wore a red tie, a nod to his Red Shirt supporters who gathered at the airport hoping to steal a glimpse of the aged populist before being carted off to court then prison. It’s still unclear how much popular and political support Thaksin and Peua Thai will lose with the embrace of the generals his supporters have long loathed.
And it wasn’t long ago, on September 19, 2020, the 14th anniversary of the 2006 coup, when Red Shirts lent their numbers to student demonstrators then agitating for monarchical reforms from Bangkok’s Sanam Luang – where one rally cry to return the nearby Grand Palace to the “people” elicited a Red Shirt roar of approval.
But the orange-shirted protest movement that can be expected to form, rage and agitate against any move to dissolve the popular Move Forward will likely be more genuine and possibly more potent than any the Red Shirts mustered, which despite their pretensions to democracy always suffered from the taint of Thaksin’s self-interest.