Politics on a loop

Happier days: Paetongtarn (left) and Srettha taking a selfie at a campaign event last year. — AFP

POLITICAL events in Thailand over the last few days have given me a strong sense of deja vu.

I’ve been covering the Land of Smiles since 2006, when I was posted in Bangkok for about four years as The Star’s correspondent.

My stint was eventful right from the start: Just a few days after settling in in an apartment in suburban Bangkok, on the night of Sept 19, I received a call saying there had been a coup d’etat. I got to the offices of The Nation newspaper where I was based in a few minutes – luckily, because it was quickly surrounded by soldiers.

“Don’t be afraid. They are friendly forces,” a Thai journalist supporting the yellow shirts said.

At that time, Thailand was divided between the yellow shirts, a pro-establishment movement that opposed then prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, and the red shirts who supported Thaksin.

That night, the Royal Thai Army ousted Thaksin, of the Thai Rak Thai party which had never lost an election. Thaksin was in New York City for a United Nations General Assembly at the time.

Fast forward to August 2024.

On Aug 7, Thailand’s Constitutional Court dissolved the Move Forward Party, which won the most seats at the 2023 general elections.

On Aug 14, it removed prime minister Srettha Thavisin from Pheu Thai, the second reincarnation of Thaksin’s Thai Rak Thai.

On Aug 16, the Thai Parliament elected its youngest ever Prime Minister, Paetongtarn Shinawatra, who is Thaksin’s daughter, and a leader of Pheu Thai.

If I were to rewind Thailand’s political history for the last 18 years, I would have covered/observed the three recent events. The only difference is the names of the parties and the prime minister.

Take the dissolution of the Move Forward Party. It is a reincarnation of Future Forward, which was dissolved and had its executive committee members barred from politics in 2020.

The disbanded Move Forward was reborn as the People’s Party. Over 140 Move Forward MPs joined the party, the second reincarnation of Future Forward.

What happened to Future Forward, which morphed into Move Forward, which transformed into the People’s Party, is deja vu, as it had happened to Thai Rak Thai.

(By the way, I love the party’s name, as “rak” means love, so Thai Rak Thai means “Thai Loves Thai”.)

Eight months after the military ousted Thaksin in 2006, the Constitutional Court dissolved Thai Rak Thai and banned 111 party leaders from participating in politics for five years. The party was then reincarnated as the People’s Power Party.

However, history repeated, and the Constitutional Court dissolved the People’s Power Party in September 2007. The party was reborn as Pheu Thai, which means “For Thais”.

More deja vu: Srettha is the fourth Thai prime minister in 16 years to be removed by the Constitutional Court. One of them was Somchai Wongsawa, the brother-in-law of deposed prime ministers Thaksin and Thaksin’s sister Yingluck. In December 2008, Somchai stepped down as PM after the Constitutional Court banned him from office.

The third deja vu point are the political events of the last few days: There’s a Shinawatra as Prime Minister again.

The 37-year-old Paetongtarn is the daughter of Thaksin, the niece of former Yingluck, and the niece-in-law of Somchai.

And then there’s the military coup.

In 2014, Yingluck faced the same fate as her brother. The military seized power and ousted her as PM. Since the 2006 military coup, the establishment has failed to eliminate the Shinawatra influence in Thai politics. In the 18 years since then, the family has produced four prime ministers.

Malaysians have asked me why Thailand’s politics seems to be caught in an endless loop. I believe it’s because Thaksin, despite living in exile for about two decades after the 2006 coup, is still politically relevant.

In the 2023 elections, Pheu Thai, led by Paetongtarn, won the second most number of seats, 141, while Move Forward won 151.

What we saw in Thailand then was the fight between Thaksin and the establishment. However, in the last election, it looked like the two sides that had been fighting ever since the divisive red shirt vs yellow shirt battles erupted came to a compromise.

“Establishment” is a code word in Thailand referring to the military, bureaucracy, and the ultimate powerful institution that comprise the power players. In the late 2000s, Thais whispered about this institution when I had private chats with them. It was a taboo subject.

But now, the whispers have turned into public protests in the streets of Thailand. The ballot boxes in last year’s elections were filled with loud voices of protest as the progressive Move Forward party won the most seats.

So it seems that the People’s Party is facing off against the establishment, which now includes its former enemy, Thaksin.

Prime Minister Paetongtarn’s big task is to keep the Shinawatra party – Pheu Thai – relevant to voters. Meanwhile, the People’s Party needs to maintain its momentum of popularity, especially among young urban voters who want to rid their country of the establishment.

Can Thailand break the loop?

Some think that in the next Thai election, the People’s Party, the reincarnation of Move Forward and Future Forward, will win more seats as young voters become angrier with the establishment.

But cynics tell me the establishment can still use the old playbook: a military coup or a judicial coup.

It will be deja vu, again.