The military junta’s scheme for Thailand’s election is back on track
FOR THE military junta that has ruled Thailand since a coup in 2014, it was a day of ups and downs. On the morning of February 8th the Thai Raksa Chart party submitted just one candidate to the Election Commission as a potential prime minister: Princess Ubolratana Mahidol. The likely outcome of an election slated for March 24th seemed to change in an instant. The junta’s efforts to orchestrate the contest in favour of its leader, Prayuth Chan-ocha, the current prime minister (pictured), appeared doomed. The princess would carry all before her. But that evening her younger brother, King Maha Vajiralongkorn, intervened publicly and damningly. He described his sister’s decision to run for office as “inappropriate”. The party fell into line a day later. The Election Commission then obediently rejected her nomination on February 11th.
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A royal goes rogue
The royal family is supposed to be above politics, but the princess claimed that she was a commoner. Upon marrying an American (whom she later divorced) she lost her royal title in 1972. She thought this freed her to run, but her brother disagreed. His statement declared that, as “part of the Chakri dynasty”, she must stay out of the fray. Horrified conservatives resumed breathing. Through an Instagram post days later the princess apologised that her “genuine intention to work for the country and Thai people has caused such problems that shouldn’t have happened in this era”.
Before the king’s intervention, observers had assumed that he was backing the princess’s candidacy as a means to end a 13-year-old political feud that has riven the country. Royalist and military elites, known as “yellow shirts”, have battled “red shirts”, acolytes of Thaksin Shinawatra, a populist former prime minister, since the army deposed him in a coup in 2006. To have a royal carry the flag for Thai Raksa Chart, which is linked to Mr Thaksin, held out the prospect of bridging the divide.
The royal rebuke demolished that hope. Confusion came next. Could the king have known nothing beforehand? This seems unlikely given that Bangkok was buzzing with rumours of the princess’s candidacy. Perhaps Mr Thaksin mistakenly believed the king approved? There is precedent. He thought royal support existed for an amnesty bill in 2013 that would have allowed him to return to Thailand. But it proved so controversial that it brought down a government led by his sister. Perhaps the king changed his mind? “You can’t underestimate the flakiness of the royal family,” counsels one former diplomat.
Whatever the truth, the day pitched Thai politics into a state of feverish anxiety. Rumours that a fresh coup was brewing began to circulate. Officials denied that military commanders were being replaced and assured worried Thais that tanks sighted near Bangkok were merely on training exercises. Politicians and pundits could not speak clearly about the princess’s political ambitions, for fear of crossing the poorly demarcated boundary between insight and insult under the vague but harsh lèse-majesté law, which protects the royal family from even the faintest criticism. The generals seized the opportunity to order Voice TV, which is owned by Mr Thaksin’s son, off the air for 15 days.
Mr Thaksin’s camp is expecting worse. On February 13th the Election Commission announced that Thai Raksa Chart had violated the Political Parties Act by bringing the princess into politics. It asked the Constitutional Court to decide whether to dissolve the party. If it is dissolved before polling day, its candidates will be struck from the ballot.
That would hurt Mr Thaksin’s election plans. Thai Raksa Chart and three other parties linked to him are participating in the election, in the hope of gaming the electoral system the generals devised to thwart him. Mr Thaksin’s main vehicle, Pheu Thai, won a higher proportion of seats than votes at the previous election, in 2011, owing to the first-past-the-post element of the electoral system. The junta has therefore enhanced the proportional part of the system and encouraged a proliferation of small parties to take advantage of it. Mr Thaksin countered with a proliferation of his own, including Thai Raksa Chart.
A diminished share of the lower house, in turn, will make it hard for Mr Thaksin to prevent Mr Prayuth from staying on as prime minister. The job is filled by a joint vote of the upper and lower houses. The junta will appoint all 250 members of the upper house. With their votes in the bag, Mr Prayuth will need just 126 votes from the 500-seat lower house to triumph.
Those should not be too hard to find. For months Mr Prayuth has used official engagements around the country as a means to rally support, even as civilian politicians were prevented from campaigning by a ban on political gatherings of more than five people. Palang Pracharat, a party founded to support the generals in the elections, looks certain to win some seats. Smaller, biddable regional parties, a staple of Thai politics, will provide more support.
This stitch-up may appeal to those unnerved by the chaos of the past week. The junta’s main achievement has been to provide much greater stability by comparison with the turmoil that consumed Thailand before it seized power. But the events of the past week also show that a veneer of democracy can have unpredictable effects, and that even within the royal family, opinion about the best way forward is divided. The democratic rump in the new parliament will have ample opportunity to show up Mr Prayuth and make life awkward for the generals, who are not paragons of efficiency as it is. By quashing his sister’s gambit and helping to secure the ban of a pro-Thaksin party, the king has, in effect, endorsed the junta’s continued sway. In time, that may come to seem this week’s biggest royal misstep.