CNN –
Thai voters on Sunday delivered a powerful message to the country’s military-backed government: they do not have the will of the people to rule.
The progressive Move Forward Party, which gained a large following among young Thais with its reformist program, won the most seats and the largest share of the population.
Second place went to Pheu Thai, the main opposition party, which has been a populist force in Thailand for 20 years.
Together they dealt a devastating blow to the conservative, military-backed establishment that had ruled on and off for decades, often by ousting popularly elected governments in coups.
“This is an unmistakable direct rebuke, a denial of Thailand’s military-authoritarian past. “It’s a rejection of military dominance in politics,” said Thitinan Pongsudhirak, a political scientist at Chulalongkorn University.
Every time Thais have been allowed to vote over the past two decades, they have done so overwhelmingly in support of the military’s political opponents. Sunday’s vote, which saw a record turnout, continued that tradition.
But despite a landslide win, it’s far from certain who will be the next front runner.
Jack Taylor/AFP/Getty Images
Supporters of the Move Forward Party react as they watch the results come in at party headquarters in Bangkok May 14 after polling stations closed in Thailand’s general election.
That’s because the military junta, which last took power in 2014, rewrote the constitution to ensure it retains a major say over who gets to take the lead, regardless of whether or not it wins the popular vote.
Neither of the two opposition parties won the absolute majority of 376 seats needed to form a government. In order to form a coalition large enough to ensure victory, they must make agreements and garner support from other parties.
But that won’t necessarily be easy.
The first thing to know is that any opposition party or coalition wishing to form a government must overcome the powerful Senate voting bloc.
Under the junta-era constitution, Thailand’s 250-seat unelected Senate is elected solely by the military and previously voted for a pro-military candidate.
As a party needs a majority of the combined chambers – 750 seats – to elect a prime minister, it means opposition parties need almost three times as many votes in the lower house to elect the next leader and form a government.
In 2019, coup leader Prayut Chan-o-cha won the Senate vote, ensuring his party’s coalition won enough seats to elect him prime minister, even though Pheu Thai was the largest party.
There are other dangers to the progressive movement’s victory as well. Parties previously pushing for change are at odds with the powerful conservative establishment – a nexus of the military, monarchy and influential elites.
Athit Perawongmetha/Portal
Move Forward party leader and prime ministerial candidate Pita Limjaroenrat attends a press conference after the general election May 15 at the party’s headquarters in Bangkok, Thailand.
Lawmakers were faced with bans, parties were dissolved and governments were overthrown. Thailand has seen a dozen successful coups since 1932, including two in the last 17 years.
And the supposedly independent Electoral Commission, the Anti-Corruption Commission and the Constitutional Court are all dominated in favor of the establishment.
However, their large advantage over the parties supported by the military speaks for the progressive camp.
“If the results were bleak or the pro-military parties got more, then we would expect manipulation and try to squeeze margins. But the results are so clear and now very difficult to overturn,” Thitinan said, adding that there would be public anger and protests at any attempt to undermine the vote.
Move Forward’s predecessor, the Future Forward Party, won the third most seats in the 2019 election. Shortly thereafter, several party leaders were banned from politics, and the party was later dissolved after a court ruled that it violated election finance rules.
In the short term, this decision ended the threat of the Future Forward Party. But it also, in many ways, laid the groundwork for Sunday’s historic vote.
Following the dissolution of Future Forward, 2020 saw youth-led protests across Thailand and a whole new generation of young political leaders emerge, some willing to debate a previously taboo topic – royal reform.
These calls have electrified Thailand, where any open discussion of the monarchy carries the threat of jail time under one of the world’s toughest lèse-majesté laws.
Many youth leaders have been jailed or face ongoing prosecution in connection with these protests. Some also founded the Move Forward party, which won the referendum on Sunday.
The military establishment is now in a political battle with a party that has included the issue of royal reform in its election manifesto.
Experts said another coup would be costly and the dissolution of a party with such a mandate would be “dramatic”.
“Dissolving a party is a pretty drastic step. If there’s a way to keep Move Forward out without dissolving it, conservative politicians would probably prefer to do it. Because it’s not such a powerful move to subvert people’s will,” said Susannah Patton, director of the Southeast Asia program at the Lowy Institute.
“But you can’t rule that out.”
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Move Forward’s appeal extended beyond the youth vote on which it was based.
Unofficial results showed the party grabbed 32 out of 33 seats in Bangkok – traditionally a stronghold of conservative parties.
“This shows that people living in urban areas are really fed up with the government that has provided the military for almost a decade,” Patton said.
“They want to vote for something else, and Move Forward is not just the youth party, it can actually garner support from a wider circle.”
Move Forward’s radical agenda includes military reform, abolishing conscription, cutting the military budget, increasing transparency and accountability, and constitutional amendments and bringing the military and the monarchy into the constitution.
The party’s victory over the populist juggernaut Pheu Thai is also significant. This is the first time since 2001 that a party linked to ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has lost an election.
And Pheu Thai’s narrow defeat in Move Forward shows voters’ frustration with the old policy cycle that pitted populist-leaning Thaksin-leaning parties against the establishment.
Thailand’s “two-party system had already collapsed in 2019, but it continues to collapse in this election,” Patton said.
In a press conference on Monday, Move Forward leader Pita Limjaroenrat said the party would press ahead with plans to change the country’s strict lèse-majesté laws – a key campaign promise despite the taboo surrounding any discussion of the royal family in Thailand.
One of his priorities is supporting young people facing jail time for lese-majesté, and Pita warned that the relationship between the Thai people and the monarchy will only deteriorate if the law stays as it is.
His policies “hit the core of the establishment,” Thitinan said, and even speaking openly about the monarchy “is an affront to the palace.”
The Move Forward leader said Monday he wanted to form an alliance with the four other opposition parties to secure a majority in the lower house.
It could be 60 days before a prime ministerial candidate is endorsed by Thailand’s combined chambers of parliament, but Sunday’s vote shows the people are ready for change.
However, given Thailand’s tumultuous recent history, that might mean little. The military has shown in the past that it has no qualms about ignoring the referendum.