The decline of the Shinawatras promises new political era for Thailand

Paetongtarn Shinawatra’s troubles began with the leak of her phone conversation with Cambodia’s Senate President and de facto leader Hun Sen. After less than 11 months in power, the government of Thailand’s youngest prime minister now looks imperiled, with her likely removal ready to set off a prolonged period of political dealmaking to elect a new prime minister from a cast of candidates that all have various weaknesses. But beyond the immediate political implications, this crisis looks set to reshape Thai politics for many years.

During the 2023 general election campaign, a tripolar political order emerged with conservatives, progressives, and Thaksinites (followers of former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, and Paetongtarn’s father) competing for power. After the election, Thaksin’s Pheu Thai Party forged a grand compromise with the conservatives, ending two decades of incessant conflict, in a bid to lock the progressive Move Forward Party (MFP) out of power. With the conservative vote divided among several parties, Pheu Thai was the only party with sufficient popular support to be a bulwark against the prospective MFP government.

But the phone call leak has led to the evaporation of this support, with both Paetongtarn and Pheu Thai experiencing a precipitous decline in opinion polling. Its lack of policy success and a troubled economy provides few ladders for the party to climb out of this pit. Were a general election held today, Pheu Thai would likely come in third place behind the progressive People’s Party (PP) and conservative Bhumjaithai Party.

That would be far from the historic status it earned as the champion of Thai electoral politics after Thaksin first won a landslide victory in 2001. But its probable third place does not translate into the complete loss of political power. Should no party win a majority of seats at the next election, Pheu Thai could emerge as a kingmaker, just as medium-sized parties such as the Democrats and Bhumjaithai have done after previous elections. 

This potential future importance may be one explaination for the People’s Party’s reluctance to move strongly against the prime minister over the phone call leak. The party seemed unwilling to support a no-confidence debate that the Bhumjaithai Party wanted to hold before Paetongtarn was last week suspended by the Constitutional Court. Its MPs have been relatively restrained in their criticism; for example, the typically fiery Wiroj Lakkhanaadisorn has urged caution about “Hun Sen’s manipulation.” 

Held simultaneously with these pragmatic concerns may be fear of what comes next.

The party reserved its strongest condemnation for the leaders of the June 28 anti-Shinawatra demonstrations over what it called “creating an opening for a military coup.” The fact that this crisis arose out of Paetongtarn’s tensions with the military over the handling of the border dispute has contributed to these fears. But while Thailand is notoriously coup-prone, the conditions do not yet appear to be ripe for one. Previous military coups in 2006 and 2014 happened only after the democratic process had reached a deadlock and were coupled with sustained mass demonstrations, neither of which have occurred so far.   

Now, the People’s Party has set conditions that it will only support a new prime minister, should Paetongtarn be deposed, if he or she pledges to run a  “temporary government”, which dissolves parliament by the end of the year and approves a referendum on constitutional reform. That could be interpreted as a signal to Pheu Thai that it remains open to future cooperation. 

At the same time, recent weeks also have indicated increased closeness between the PP and Bhumjaithai, which joined the opposition only recently. The two parties differ starkly on their stances towards Thailand’s traditional institutions, but Anutin has shown greater friendliness towards individual MPs and refused to rule out a coalition government with the PP in the future if they can “accept each other’s policies.” PP leader Natthaphong Ruengpanyawut also has not closed the door on supporting Bhumjaithai leader Anutin as prime minister.

This unholy arrangement will not materialise while the Pheu Thai-led coalition has a majority in the parliament. But its majority is thin and, in any case, new elections must be held by 2027 at the latest. All parties therefore seem to be keeping their options open to maximise room for political manoeuvre. In short, they appear prepared for more of what Dan Slater and Erica Simmons call “promiscuous power-sharing" — whether that be a renewed marriage between Pheu Thai and the progressives or a previously unthinkable alliance between the People’s Party and Bhumjaithai.

For now, Pheu Thai will continue to be an influential player in Thai politics and, if prominent local families remain committed to the party, it is unlikely to experience complete extinction after the next election. Yet other events suggest the Shinawatras face an uphill struggle for political survival: accusations Paetongtarn is guilty of treason in her phone call with Hun Sen, a lese-majeste case against Thaksin and an investigation into whether he feigned illnesses during a six-month prison sentence on return from his 15-year exile. All that raises the spectre of whether members of the family might be forced to eventually flee the country again. How much influence can the Shinawatras wield from exile with a party far from its electoral peak?

In the meantime, Thai politics remains characterised by its tripolar nature. As Antonio Gramsci once wrote, “The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.” The decades-long electoral dominance of the Shinawatras appears to be in terminal decline, and a new party system that maps more closely along ideological divisions in Thailand may emerge as a result. Yet today Pheu Thai remains a sizable force fighting for its life, and amid this fight the morbid symptoms of new and confusing alliances between the three camps of Thai politics will continue. 

Mathis Lohatepanont is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Political Science at the University of Michigan.

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