These are strange days in Thai politics. Yesterday, the Pheu Thai party, the leader of Thailand’s ruling coalition, announced that it has formally invited the Democrat Party to join the government, after cutting its ties with a party backed by the Thai military.
Sorawong Thienthong, Pheu Thai’s secretary-general, said that he had yesterday delivered a formal invitation to Det-it Khaothong, the secretary-general of the Democratic Party, according to a report in The Nation. This came a day after he notified party leader Chalermchai Sri-on that the party, Pheu Thai’s former arch-rival, would be welcome to join the ruling coalition.
“We have resolved to invite the Democrat Party because we need to ensure stability in the House,” Sorawong said. “We are not just inviting Democrats, but also other parties and groups of politicians to join the coalition.”
Pheu Thai is currently in the process of assembling a new coalition under Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra after her predecessor, Srettha Thavisin, was forced to step down by the Constitutional Court on August 14. Srettha was accused of a “gross ethical violation” for appointing to his cabinet an official who had served a past prison sentence.
In reaching out to the Democrats, Sorawong said that Pheu Thai has decided to bury the hatchet. “The past is the past. Now we’re confident that we all have the same goal of moving the people and the country to a good direction,” he said. Sorawong said that a change of leadership in the Democrats – Det-it and Chalermchai were both appointed in December – made it easier to transcend old enmities.
“It’s time for the two parties to work together to solve people’s problems,” Sorawong added. “The country has been on a decline for years now, and it’s time for the two parties to move forward together and leave conflicts and misunderstandings behind.”
Nonetheless, the decision to partner with the Democrats marks another wild swing of allegiances for Pheu Thai. Though much diminished – the party won just 25 seats at the last general election – the conservative Democrats were central to the red-yellow wars of the 2000s and early 2010s, which culminated in the military coup of 2014. A decade ago, such a partnership would have been unthinkable, but a lot has changed in Thai politics over the past 18 months. In August 2023, former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, Pheu Thai’s de facto leader, was allowed to return to Thailand after more than 15 years of self-exile, the result of a political arrangement with the royalist establishment that also saw Pheu Thai form a coalition with conservative and military-backed parties after last year’s general election.
In fact, the invitation to the Democrats comes after Pheu Thai announced that it was severing its ties with one of these military-backed parties, the Palang Pracharath Party (PPRP). As suggested above, this, too, was an unlikely partnership: the PPRP leader, Gen. Prawit Wongsuwan, was a pillar of the conservative-royalist establishment and had a long history of clashes with Pheu Thai and the Shinawatra clan, whose governments he twice helped overthrow.
But this shotgun marriage reportedly hit the rocks after Prawit failed to show up for a parliamentary vote to approve Paetongtarn as prime minister, angering key Pheu Thai figures. When later asked by a female reporter for his opinion about Paetongtarn’s selection, the 79-year-old general appeared to physically assault her. Sorawong told Reuters on Tuesday that the PPRP, which holds 40 seats in the House of Representatives, “will not be involved in the formation of the government.”
The decision comes amid a widely reported rift between Prawit and a splinter faction of the PPRP led by Thammanat Prompao, the party’s secretary-general, who is currently serving as agriculture minister. Pheu Thai has reportedly kept the door open for Thammanat’s faction, which, the latter claims, has the support of 29 of the PPRP’s 40 MPs, as well as members of other smaller parties. It is perhaps no coincidence that Thammanat started his career with Thaksin’s Thai Rak Thai party, before joining the PPRP after its founding in 2018 and winning a seat in parliament the following year. (Thammanat also spent four years in prison in Australia on drug charges.)
Given the river of bad blood between Pheu Thai and Prawit, it was just a matter of time before one or both began to grow uncomfortable with their political arrangement, and there have been signs of discontent on both sides for some time. Pheu Thai officials had grown suspicious that Prawit, who was frequently absent from parliament, supposedly for health reasons, was plotting against it behind the scenes.
Likewise, PPRP-adjacent figures were seemingly unhappy about being forced to work with the Shinawatras. The two former military-appointed senators who filed the case at the Constitutional Court that led to the dismissal from office of Srettha were under the control of Prawit. Ruangkrai Leekitwattana, the petitioner who last week sought an investigation of Paetongtarn Shinawatra for corruption, is also a member of the party.
Now, too, former members of the Democrats are questioning the party’s agreement with Pheu Thai. Sirichoke Sopha, a longtime aide of former prime minister and Democrat leader Abhisit Vejjajiva, has resigned from the party in protest. Party veteran Samphan Thongsamak, a long-time former Democrat MP and ex-education minister, told a private Line message group that the party’s current leaders must be “addicted to meth” for wanting to join a Shinawatra-led government, and should be sent to rehab.
All of this raises the obvious question of whether, and for how long, Pheu Thai and the Democrats will be able to transcend their troubled history – assuming Paetongtarn’s administration manages to serve out the rest of its term. Here the possible presence of Thammanat looms large: if Srettha was removed from office for appointing to his cabinet an official with a past prison sentence, the Thai political observer Andrew MacGregor Marshall wrote in a post on Facebook, the same could also apply to Thammanat, given his criminal record in Australia.
“The same argument could be used to bring down Paetongtarn Shinawatra any time Thaksin’s enemies want,” he said.