Thai
Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, left, bows as he participates in an
anointment ceremony at the coronation of King Maha Vajiralongkorn in
Bangkok on May 4, 2019. (Associated Press)
Thailand’s military appointed the election commissioners. It repeatedly postponed voting day.
Its
leading opponents were hit with court cases or disqualified altogether,
and the night before the election Thailand’s king appeared to endorse
the army-backed incumbent.
With all that help, the military prevailed – barely.
Prime
Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha appeared likely Thursday to retain his
position after the election commission, using a controversial formula
for apportioning parliamentary seats, left an anti-military coalition
just short of a majority in the lower house after Thailand’s first
election in eight years.
Days removed from an ostentatious royal coronation
that was designed to unify Thailand, official results from the March
election showed a country still bitterly divided and seemingly headed
for another period of political instability.
Analysts
said the military-backed party headed by Prayuth, a former general who
has been in power since launching a coup in 2014, would join with a
smattering of smaller parties to cobble together the narrowest of
majorities in the 500-seat lower house.
The
Palang Pracharat party was expected to lead a wobbly coalition of up to
20 parties — including many with just one lawmaker — that together
would control 254 seats in the lower house.
Combined with 250 seats the military appoints in the upper house — which is not subject to popular vote — Prayuth had a clear path
to holding on to the prime minister’s job. The ex-military man had
sought to legitimize his position with an election after the longest
period of military rule in Thailand’s modern history.
But
analysts said the slim majority in the lower house would probably mean a
shaky government that would struggle to pass legislation and might not
hold together for more than a year or two. That would make it difficult
for Thailand to tackle its sluggish economic growth and heal the
divisions of more than a decade marked by coups, street protests and
shrinking democratic space.
“The
biggest challenge is how they survive,” said Prajak Kongkirati, an
assistant political science professor at Bangkok’s Thammasat University.
“Maintaining political stability will be the biggest concern of the new government.”
The
largest opposition party, Pheu Thai, said it would mount a legal
challenge to the election commission’s convoluted formula for
determining parliamentary seats, which was being used for the first time
and remained little understood to most Thais.
After initial results from the March 24 vote,
Pheu Thai said that it had formed a coalition of seven parties that
opposed a continuation of military rule, and that together they held a
small majority — 255 seats — in the lower house.
But under results endorsed by the election commission
late Wednesday, the anti-military grouping’s tally dropped to 245
seats. That’s because Thailand has two types of lawmakers: those elected
by constituencies and a smaller number elected from party lists based
on how many overall votes the parties receive.
With
its 250 upper house seats, Palang Pracharat needed to win only 126
lower house seats to have a majority in the combined body. The election
commission’s results gave the party 115 seats – 11 short of what it
needed.
And
the commission, without explanation, assigned 11 seats to small parties
that each had only one lawmaker, and were seen as likely to join the
military coalition.
“The
election results have been unfair chiefly due to the fact that the
formula used to calculate and allocate party-list MP seats has been
changed from what people assumed prior to the election,” said Pravit
Rojanaphruk, a senior Thai journalist and staff writer for the Khaosod
news site.
“Thailand is entering a new chapter with the junta masquerading as a legitimate regime.”
The
results set the stage for a period of horse-trading and political games
before parliament convenes for the first time May 23, with the prime
minister to be chosen in early June. Prajak, the analyst, said that the
military would be able to offer large amounts of cash or intimidate
lawmakers from the smaller parties to get them to join its coalition.
“There
will be inducements,” Prajak said. During the election campaign, “many
parties were approached with generous offers … of 50 million baht [$1.57
million] to switch to Prayuth.”
Court
cases still hang over leading anti-military figures, and if they are
disqualified it could lead to even more seats sliding into the
pro-military camp.
Thai
politics in the last two decades has been a two-horse race between
pro-military establishment parties and former Prime Minister Thaksin
Shinawatra, a telecommunications tycoon whose parties were ousted by
coups in 2006 and 2014.
But
this election saw the entrance of a charismatic new opposition figure,
Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit, the 40-year-old scion of an auto parts
empire. Thanathorn’s brand-new party captured the third-most votes after
Palang Pracharat and Pheu Thai and holds 80 seats, making it a powerful
member of the anti-military coalition.
Future
Forward party leader Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit founded the most
popular new political force in Thailand. (Lillian Suwanrumpha /
AFP/Getty Images)
Thanathorn’s
Future Forward party appealed to Thailand’s many young first-time
voters – who account for about 14% of the 51 million people eligible to
cast ballots – by pledging to introduce welfare programs financed by
cutting the substantial military budget.
That
made Thanathorn a target of the pro-army establishment. He has been
charged in two criminal cases, including one for sedition, that he
claims are “political sabotage.”
In
a statement Thursday on his Facebook page, Thanathorn renewed his calls
for lawmakers to “turn off the senators’ switch,” asking all
anti-military lawmakers to band together to keep Palang Pracharat from
achieving 126 lower house seats.
The
election commissioners have defended their counting formula, saying it
was derived from Germany. On Thai social media, the math has been the
butt of jokes.
If they were assigned any responsibility for this election system, Prajak said, “Germans would be furious.”
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