\n<\/p>\n
Bangkok<\/strong> \u2013 Thailand\u2019s swing to more conservative politics in last weekend\u2019s election reveals as much about the dynamics of local power brokers as it does the missteps of the main progressive party, which failed to get its message to stick outside of urban centres.<\/p>\n Anutin Charnvirakul, the leader of the Bhumjaithai Party, comfortably won Sunday\u2019s election, according to an unofficial count by the Election Commission of Thailand (ECT), securing more than 190 of the 500 seats in Thailand\u2019s parliament.<\/p>\n list of 4 items<\/span>end of list<\/span><\/section>\n While the ECT has 60 days to verify the results, Anutin is wasting no time.<\/p>\n On Tuesday, his attention had already turned to forming a coalition government with himself as prime minister, as his election rivals were left to pick through the ruins of their failed campaigns.<\/p>\n The youth-facing reformers in the People\u2019s Party had been widely expected to secure the largest number of seats and the biggest share of the vote.<\/p>\n But they won just 118 seats, according to the ECT\u2019s website, dozens fewer than the party secured in the 2023 election. The drop in support would seem to suggest that the public has turned away from the People\u2019s Party\u2019s call for structural reform in Thailand\u2019s economy and politics.<\/p>\n Votes appear to have shifted to Anutin\u2019s camp, an arch-nationalist who represents the interests of the country\u2019s political and economic elite.<\/p>\n Though allegations of vote-buying and other polling irregularities in close constituency contests were growing, even the People\u2019s Party leader, Nattaphong Ruengpanyawut, said it would not have been large enough to change the overall result.<\/p>\n Instead, a tearful Nattaphong apologised in a television interview to the party\u2019s faithful and his members of parliament who lost their seats.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m sad how the results turned out \u2026 but despite these tears, I\u2019m committed to carrying on working for the people,\u201d the 38-year-old said.<\/p>\n Analysts and political insiders told Al Jazeera that the People\u2019s Party\u2019s loss of voters \u2013 apart from urban areas in and around the capital, Bangkok, and the northern city of Chiang Mai \u2013 pointed to the deeper realities of Thai politics that continue to be insurmountable for reformists.<\/p>\n First among those obstacles is political patronage, experts say, where political support is based upon the promise of future favours.<\/p>\n Powerful political dynasties, called \u201cBaan Yai\u201d (Big Houses) in the Thai language, are entrenched across the country and particularly in Chonburi, Buriram and Sisaket provinces.<\/p>\n The \u201cBaan Yai\u201d joined forces under Anutin\u2019s Bhumjaithai Party umbrella and brought along their followers to block out the People\u2019s Party on election day.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s been like this for a really long time,\u201d said an aide to one of the most prominent of the political dynasties.<\/p>\n \u201cIn Bangkok, they think of their MPs as lawmakers, but we see them as village heads \u2013 someone who goes out and bats for you,\u201d said the aide, who requested anonymity as he was not authorised to speak to the media.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a person you see every day. This is the person who fixes your problems,\u201d the aide added.<\/p>\n Khemthong Tonsakulrungruang, a constitutional law scholar at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, said the People\u2019s Party may have made a strategic mistake by neglecting \u201cto combat the entrenched influence of Baan Yai\u201d over local voters.<\/p>\n \u201cBecause resources are so scarce, rural populations do not view an MP as a representative in the civic sense \u2026 instead, they see them as a \u2018clan leader\u2019,\u201d Khemthong explained.<\/p>\n \u201cThey remain tethered to this patronage system because it is effectively the only safety net they have,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Thailand\u2019s last election in 2023 delivered a shock warning to some of those dynasties \u2013 in Chiang Mai and Chonburi \u2013 as younger voters could not be counted on to respect the influence of the Baan Yai at the polls.<\/p>\n That year, a so-called \u201corange wave\u201d got behind the strong pro-democracy and reform message of the Move Forward Party \u2013 the People\u2019s Party predecessor \u2013 after nine years of military rule by former army chief Prayut Chan-ocha.<\/p>\n Move Forward won that election, but it was promptly dissolved as a political party by the courts over its intention to reform the country\u2019s draconian royal defamation laws, which protect Thailand\u2019s powerful monarchy from criticism.<\/p>\n Move Forward rose from the ashes and came back as the People\u2019s Party. But with its front-line leaders banned from politics, the movement struggled to reorganise across Thailand, another reason given for the party\u2019s shortfall at the polls last weekend.<\/p>\n History also appears to be repeating.<\/p>\n Barely 24 hours after polling stations closed, Thailand\u2019s National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) forwarded a petition to the Supreme Court seeking to ban 44 of the People\u2019s Party Members of Parliament \u2013 including Natthaphong \u2013 from politics.<\/p>\n The Supreme Court\u2019s decision could result in a lifetime ban for the progressive MPs \u2013 the latest legal blows to its momentum.<\/p>\n Nationalism also played a big part in Anutin\u2019s win, particularly in the wake of the recent border war with neighbouring Cambodia.<\/p>\n Bhumjaithai cast itself as the party that got behind the military during the conflict and cast its political rivals as less able to protect the country.<\/p>\n Now, as election analysts assess the results, it appears that the return of the Baan Yai was the most crucial to Anutin\u2019s decisive win, as old political power brokers consolidated under Bhumjaithai\u2019s conservative credentials and refrained from splitting the vote share, which would have been advantageous to the progressive bloc.<\/p>\n \u201cVoter turnout is at a historic low in the last 30 years, only 65 percent, according to the Election Commission,\u201d said Prinya Thaewanarumitkul, a Thai politics expert and an academic at Thammasat University in Bangkok.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen voter turnout is low, the \u2018organised votes\u2019 [mobilised supporters] and the influence of the \u2018Baan Yais\u2019 become the deciding factors,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Preliminary results show that Bhumjaithai made significant gains from central Thailand to the northeast, as well as the southernmost border area with Malaysia \u2013 many seats being won due to support from political families who expressed their support publicly for Anutin before the vote.<\/p>\n Beyond the drop in support for reformers and MPs losing their seats, the vote has left many Gen Z supporters at a loss as to why people did not choose to change Thailand for the better. They wonder why their countrymen appear to have thrown their support behind conservatism rather than change, especially when the poor are falling further behind the rich in Thailand\u2019s slowing economy.<\/p>\n For People\u2019s Party voter Arsikin Singthong, 22, who lives in Thailand\u2019s southern Muslim-majority border province of Pattani, the reason can be found in money, politics and rural poverty.<\/p>\n \u201cThese Baan Yai politicians buy the poverty of rural people. This is the game,\u201d Arsikin told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n \u201cBut they can\u2019t buy the urban population any more because we have already woken up,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n The return of the political dynasties as power brokers reflects the systemic poverty still found in many parts of rural Thailand, analysts say.<\/p>\n The northeast, north and south lean towards political dynasties and populist promises in nearly all Thai elections, they say.<\/p>\n \u201cThe country is fundamentally split by resource allocation,\u201d said Chulalongkorn University\u2019s Khemthong.<\/p>\n \u201cA younger generation has managed to break free from these patronage networks,\u201d Khemthong said, referring to urban voters who form the People\u2019s Party support base in Bangkok and elsewhere.<\/p>\n \u201cThey have the luxury of dissent because they have exited the system that still binds those left behind,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Bangkok \u2013 Thailand\u2019s swing to more conservative politics in last weekend\u2019s election reveals as much about the dynamics of local power brokers as it does the missteps of the main progressive party, which failed to get its message to stick outside of urban centres. Anutin Charnvirakul, the leader of the Bhumjaithai Party, comfortably won Sunday\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12138,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-asia-pacific"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12137","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12137"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12137\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12138"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Recommended Stories <\/h2>\n
\u2018Baan Yai\u2019 (Big Houses) politics<\/h3>\n
\u2018The only safety net they have\u2019<\/h3>\n
\u2018Politicians buy the poverty of rural people\u2019<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"