In Thailand’s history, only two large-scale democracy movements were successful in toppling military-led regimes. And significantly, both the 1973 and 1992 pro-democracy movements included widespread support from the Bangkok middle class, which has proven in the past to be a pivotal factor in determining the staying power of royal-military-backed governments and elected governments alike.
In 2020 and 2021, many pro-democracy advocates who desired the removal of the royal-military backed regime of General Prayut Chan-o-cha had become hopeful that democratic change was on the horizon. At the time, Thailand saw an eruption of large student-led protests that took place in the capital Bangkok and many major provincial centers. The protests were catalyzed by a Constitutional Court ruling that disbanded the progressive Future Forward Party, which had come in third in elections held in March 2019, over an alleged campaign financing violation. However, the movement ultimately petered out due in part to security measures and the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, which resulted in severe restrictions on public gatherings.
Those student-led protests both reflected and prompted a significant shift in Thai political culture. For the first time, younger middle and upper-class Thais all but uniformly opposed the traditional hegemonic political culture centered on the monarchy. There had been previous instances of Thai students opposing military dictatorships, but anti-monarchy political stances had never been so dominant and open among younger generations of Thais, and students had not been at the forefront of change since the 1970s.
But such radical stances left an older generation of royalist-leaning Thais on the sidelines. The younger Thais pushing the envelope were hamstrung by a lack of support from many older middle- and upper-class Thais – including figures in academia, politics, media, and non-government organizations – who for decades served to buttress royalism as the dominant political ideology. By and large, they rejected the youth and saw them as a threat to an institution that ensured the unity and stability of the state and society, and many still backed the arch-royalist Prayut. Indeed, just one year earlier in a national election, the military-backed, pro-Prayut Palang Pracharath Party (PPRP) won the most parliamentary seats in Bangkok, signifying that the older generation’s royalist preferences prevailed in the capital.
Over four years later, however, this generational divide is not nearly as wide. At a general election in May 2023, Move Forward, the successor party to Future Forward, captured 32 out of the 33 seats in the capital, signaling a shift in the middle class from supporters of the royal establishment to opponents. And over the past year, that support for the reformist Move Forward has grown due in part to the return and political rehabilitation of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, the archenemy of the establishment and its middle-class allies for some two decades.
Following some 15 years of living in self-imposed exile, Thaksin, the de facto leader of the ruling Pheu Thai Party, returned to Thailand last August. The former premier cut a deal with the royal-military establishment and joined forces with royal and military-backed parties that the student-led movement was so arduously fighting to bring down. So, in finding his way back home, Thaksin’s position in Thai politics has transformed, from an opponent of the conservative establishment to a collaborator. The former premier has since received preferential treatment from the establishment, including King Vajiralongkorn, who reduced his eight-year prison sentence for corruption and abuse of power conviction down to only one year. Thaksin did not even spend a day in prison, however, due to health reasons widely believed to have been feigned.
However, while Thaksin may have personally benefitted from the deal, Pheu Thai has lost its credibility among many of its longtime supporters, after violating a promise that the party would never align with the military. And over the past year, polls have consistently shown a decline in support for Pheu Thai and a simultaneous rise in support for the radically more progressive Move Forward.
But perhaps more significantly, Thaksin’s rightward shift has also produced a more conducive environment for Move Forward’s progressive agenda among some older generations of middle- and upper-class Bangkokians, who had rejected or been on the fence with the party and its predecessor. Now, Move Forward and the younger generations of Thais challenging the establishment share the same enemy as that older generation, namely, Thaksin and Pheu Thai.
More recently, a pair of controversial establishment-backed Constitutional Court rulings will likely both broaden and intensify the pro-reform sentiments among both younger and older Bangkokians.
A protest organized by Thailand’s Free Youth Movement at the Democracy Monument in Bangkok, Thailand, August 16, 2020. (Wikimedia Commons/Supanut Arunoprayote)
An Affront to Bangkokians
First, on August 7, the Constitutional Court dissolved Move Forward and banned its executive committee, including its former leader Pita Limjaroenrat, from political activities for 10 years. In January, the court had ruled that the party’s earlier campaign plans to amend the controversial lese-majeste law undermined the country’s system of governance with the king as the head of state. Move Forward members have asserted that the law, Section 112 of the country’s Criminal Code, is used by conservative royalists as a political tool to suppress opposition and maintain royal and military prerogatives.
The decision was a massive blow to the progressive party, which won a stunning victory at last year’s election, but was later blocked by the military-appointed Senate from forming a government. Remaining Move Forward parliamentarians regrouped within days of the ruling, establishing a new “People’s Party,” headed by Natthaphong Ruangpanyawut, 37, Move Forward’s former deputy secretary-general. Despite the ruling, Natthaphong vowed to continue the push to amend Section 112, which levies harsh punishments for critical comments of the monarchy and royal family. The new party’s popularity has skyrocketed according to new polls, with one showing it commanding a whopping 84 percent support, while desires for the abolition of the monarchy and the establishment of a republic have risen.
That support for the rebranded party and its progressive agenda could increase further – especially in Bangkok – as a result of a second Constitutional Court decision on August 14, which removed Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin from office. The court ruled by a 5-4 majority that Srettha, a real estate tycoon, breached ethics rules by appointing to his Cabinet a lawyer and former Thaksin bagman who had served prison time for bribery.
Srettha had led the Pheu Thai government since it took office in August 2023. The affable 62-year-old had been seen by many analysts as a compromise between the establishment and Thaksin, who some believed preferred that his youngest daughter, Paetongtarn, be appointed prime minister. On August 16, Thaksin may have finally gotten his wish as parliament voted to select the 37-year-old as Srettha’s replacement. (All 143 parliamentarians from the opposition People’s Party voted against her.)
Reinforced Divisions, Reestablished Alliance
A billionaire telecoms mogul and former police colonel from Chiang Mai, in Thailand’s north, Thaksin was first elected in a decisive victory in 2001, on a populist platform that promised to raise up the “forgotten” rural masses of north and northeast Thailand. While in office, he evolved into the primary adversary of the country’s old guard establishment during the final stages of the reign of the late King Bhumibol. In addition to overthrowing Thaksin-aligned parties in military coups in 2006 and 2014, courts also disbanded Thaksin-aligned parties in 2007 and 2008. However, Thaksin’s support base mainly came from the relatively poorer north and northeast, and was strongly opposed in Bangkok, then a bastion of “yellow” royalism.
Before Thaksin joined hands with the establishment last August, Pheu Thai and Move Forward, which together captured more than two-thirds of the vote at the election, had announced plans to form a coalition government, with the suave, dapper and Harvard-educated Pita from Move Forward as prime minister. That coalition could have seemingly put the country on a democratic path but also bridged the deep historical political divisions that overlap with region and social class.
For the past two decades, Pheu Thai had had antagonistic relationships with the pro-establishment parties popular in Bangkok, namely the Democrat Party. However, key figures in the Move Forward camp – including Future Forward founders Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit, Pannika Wanich, and Piyabutr Saengkanokkul, as well as Pita – had links to Pheu Thai even though many of its MPs hailed from anti-Thaksin backgrounds. And prior to the government’s formation, Thanathorn even met Thaksin in Hong Kong in what most analysts believed signaled Move Forward’s bid to form a government with Pheu Thai. Later Thanathorn, who had strong influence within Move Forward, even stated that Pheu Thai was “a friend.”
In fact, after the founding of Future Forward in 2018 and the rapid inroads that the party made in Bangkok, the party’s young supporters in the capital had even come around to sympathizing with Thaksin’s overwhelmingly provincial supporters. Despite the massive social gulf between these younger middle-class urbanites and the Thaksinite “Red Shirts” from the north and northeast, both desired the elevation of electoral democracy and the reduction of the authority of the military and monarchy.
Once Move Forward was forced into opposition with Thaksin’s assistance, however, this ended any possibility of healing the conflict between Bangkok and Pheu Thai. For Move Forward’s younger supporters in particular, Thaksin’s perceived backstabbing initiated a process whereby the resentment that had been directed squarely at the military and monarchy was now also directed in some measure at Thaksin.
At the same time, the end of the Move Forward-Pheu Thai alliance opened the door for an improved relationship between Move Forward and its supporters with the older generation who had earlier opposed the party. Many older, royalist-leaning Thais became more sympathetic to Move Forward now that they both shared the same enemy.
It should be recognized that if the Move Forward-Pheu Thai coalition had been formed and the two parties had actually collaborated together to curtail establishment authority, the skepticism toward Move Forward among conservatives opposed to or on the fence with the progressive party would likely have intensified. But after Move Forward was betrayed by Thaksin, it began to redirect those lingering negative sentiments toward Pheu Thai and away from Move Forward. In some cases, it even made conservatives more sympathetic to the party’s progressive agenda.
In both Bangkok and the historically pro-establishment south, Thai society has recently been rife with anecdotes of older conservative “yellow” royalists turning to support – or at the very least not so strongly oppose – the orange-hued Move Forward party. Sharp divisions between conservative yellow and progressive orange scholars at elite university campuses only a few years ago have softened, with many royalist-leaning academics moving to the orange camp.
Similarly, former members of the Democrat Party, the preferred political party of the middle and upper classes in Bangkok in the past, have expressed sympathy for both Pita and Move Forward, despite butting heads with Thanathorn over monarchy reform issues as recently as a year ago. Prominent royalist-leaning media figures have railed against Thaksin for “breaking the promise” he and Pheu Thai made on the campaign trail to never align with the establishment. Conversely, these figures have praised younger generations for their boldness in standing up against the cycle of military intervention despite criticizing Thanathorn and Future Forward in the past.
To be sure, many older royalists have refused to endorse Move Forward’s most progressive stances, such as its pledge to amend the lese-majeste law. Yet at the same time, many have lauded Move Forward for its adamant pledge to not participate in dirty money politics. Move Forward was known not to have engaged in any vote-buying, and after its dissolution, remaining parliamentarians shunned massive financial offers from other parties to jump ship. Moreover, many of its top parliamentarians graduated from the country’s top universities, and some carried out graduate studies at prominent universities abroad. This contrasts with the country’s long history of prominent political elites hailing from military or police backgrounds, including Thaksin.
Moreover, there has been a broad recognition among older figures such as Abhisit that the future of Thai society and politics lies in the hands of the younger generations, and though they may not agree with everything, these younger Thais are doing what they genuinely believe is best for the country. In contrast, some of these same figures have insisted for two decades that Thaksin has been more interested in advancing his own agenda than bettering the country as a whole.
Supporters of Thailand’s Move Forward Party at a post-election rally in Chiang Mai, Thailand, June 15, 2023. (Facebook/Pita Limjaroenrat – พิธา ลิ้มเจริญรัตน์)
Thaksin’s Provocations
Thaksin’s critics have always viewed him as brash and overconfident, views that have only been reinforced significantly by the former leader’s activities since returning to Thailand last year.
Under the murky election deal that allowed Thaksin to come home, he would play only a limited role in politics even though it was widely recognized that he was the ultimate decision maker for Pheu Thai. And before his arrival, the former prime minister had played coy by stating on social media that he was an “old man” (he’s now 75) and just wished to return home to spend time with his family and grandchildren.
Yet after he was granted parole and released from a prison hospital in February, Thaksin visited foreign leaders in neighboring countries, offered to serve as a broker for neighboring Myanmar’s civil war, met with scores of politicians and voters, and pushed for the appointment of allies to key positions during a May cabinet reshuffle. All this signified to critics that Thaksin had not changed one bit and remained focused on reacquiring as much political influence as possible.
Moreover, sources have also alleged that Thaksin, a former English Premier League football club owner, ultimately aims to collect on confiscated assets worth $1.4 billion that Thai courts seized back in 2008. Meanwhile, Thaksin is known to want bring back his sister Yingluck, who in 2014 similarly fled the country to avoid dereliction of duty charges for her government’s controversial rice-pledging scheme, which cost the government some $21.4 billion.
In what nearly all analysts believe reflects elite establishment efforts to control his apparent grandiose aspirations, in June, Thaksin was indicted on lese-majeste charges for comments he made to South Korean media in 2015. Thaksin said in the interview that the Privy Council, then led by known arch-enemy of Thaksin, General Prem Thinsulanonda, had helped to engineer the coup against his sister.
Yet, since Thaksin was granted bail on those charges, he has seemingly continued to test the limits of his authority. Later in June, Sudarat Keyurapan, leader of the Thai Sang Thai Party and a former ally of Thaksin, claimed that Thaksin aims to abolish the party list system for electing MPs. Move Forward had captured the most party list seats in the last election, and the apparent plans were widely believed to reflect Thaksin and the establishment’s effort to destroy the party. Thaksin, meanwhile, controversially campaigned for provincial-level elections for Pheu Thai-linked candidates in provinces on the outskirts of Bangkok.
Sudarat is not the only former ally-turned-critic of Thaksin. Yingluck’s former National Security Council head, General Paradon Pattanathabut, one of Thaksin’s closest allies in the past, has echoed Thaksin critics’ sentiments by stating that the former prime minister is “narcissistic.” That narcissism led Thaksin to mistakenly predict before the 2023 election that Pheu Thai would pull off a “landslide” victory, yet he apparently hasn’t learned his lesson: Thaksin most recently told Pheu Thai members that the party will win a majority of over 250 seats in the next election. (The party only won just 141 in last year’s election.)
Paradon is one of several former allies who have emphasized for months that Pheu Thai stands no chance in any future election against Move Forward and now the People’s Party. Meanwhile, others have insisted that Thaksin remains seemingly unaware that he has many enemies in the establishment whose toes he is stepping on.
Most recently, in a sign that the powers-that-be aim to curb Thaksin’s ever-growing ambitions, Thai courts rejected the former leader’s request to travel to Dubai for health treatment. Yet, many still believe Thaksin will likely be able to avoid a lese-majeste conviction because of the establishment’s need to use the once-dominant Pheu Thai to fend off Move Forward, and now the People’s Party, ahead of the next election, currently scheduled for 2027.
At the same time, by allowing Thaksin to walk free, the establishment will no doubt unlock a fury of criticism from both old and young Bangkokians, some of whom have already cried foul and called out the “double standards” applied to Thaksin compared with young critics of the monarchy. (Thaksin appeared in court for a hearing on August 19, at which the case was adjourned until June of next year.)
More than 270 people have been charged with lese-majeste since the breakout of those student-led protests four years ago. While Thaksin just received bail for his lese-majeste case, most of those charged under the law have faced stiff sentences. In January, a 30-year-old online clothing vendor from Chiang Rai province was sentenced to 50 years in prison for posts he made on Facebook.
The case of 28-year-old jailed activist Netiporn “Bung” Sanesangkhom, who died after going on a hunger strike in jail, has generated particular sympathy from media popular among older royalist-leaning Thais. Bung was a middle-class Bangkokian English tutor whose father was a judge, and a decade earlier she took part in the anti-Thaksin protests that culminated in the 2014 coup. Rather than criticize Bung for her firm anti-establishment stance, her courage and determination have been widely praised.
Many older and younger Thais have been dismayed over the treatment of critics of the monarchy, and some have even compared current state efforts to quell criticism of the monarchy with a 2005 speech delivered by the late King Bhumibol, who emphasized that criticism of the monarch should be tolerated.
A portrait of Thailand’s King Vajiralongkorn in Chiang Khong, northern Thailand, December 8, 2018. (Sebastian Strangio)
Beyond Thaksin and Royalism
Bhumibol was widely revered among the country’s middle and upper classes and regionally across southern Thailand, except in the insurgency-plagued and predominantly Malay-Muslim Deep South. To some older critics of the conservative establishment, however, the traditional royalist fabric in these elements of society needed to be unraveled for the country to move forward democratically. At the same time, the country desperately needed new reform-oriented political players who were not tied to Thaksin, who would never be accepted by Bangkokians.
In other words, from the perspective of these older provincial Thais, including some who supported Thaksin in the past, Thai society needed to move beyond the red-yellow binary of Thaksin and royalism.
Some of these Thais, including some figures of significant stature, commented on the futility of significant democratic change emerging from Thais ranked lower in the social order or from political parties, such as Pheu Thai, that overwhelmingly represent them. Change needed to come from the center; and it needed support from across middle-class society, not just among students. “As long as Bangkok people oppose electoral outcomes, Thailand will never change,” an older ethnic Malay Muslim nationalist activist told me several years ago. “And they will never support change as long as Red Shirts and Thaksin lead it.”
The academic Benedict Anderson made a similar observation concerning class divisions and political change some 50 years ago. Although the successful 1973 uprising against the military regime led by General Thanom Kittikachorn was initially led by university students, harsh crackdowns helped to generate broader, middle-class sympathy and support. Anderson asserted that if the protesters were “slumdwellers rather than generally well-dressed urbanites,” the military would have been able to drum up more support for repression.
To some degree, this insight played out in 2010, when Thaksin’s mostly provincial Red Shirt supporters protested against the establishment-backed Democrat Party government of Abhisit Vejjajiva and were suppressed by the military. Not many Bangkokians were outraged when over 90 Red Shirts were killed during the military crackdown. Some even came to the defense of Abhisit, who was then seen by Thaksin supporters as a lackey of Prem and the old guard establishment, in a similar way to which both new and old generations of Bangkokians now view Thaksin as a lackey of the current establishment.
The fact that Thaksin’s return to the political spotlight, this time in alignment with the establishment, has provoked older Thais is significant, given that their traditional views of political authority have long been deeply hegemonic. While the younger generations of middle- and upper-class Thais started to shun royalism several years ago, the combination of Thaksin’s pro-establishment turn and the same establishment’s repression of Move Forward and its supporters has in effect produced an environment that is more sympathetic for younger Thais seeking to advance a progressive agenda. Most older conservatives do not share the young generation’s staunch anti-establishment views. However, those progressive dispositions have been to some degree overlooked in light of the return of the old enemy.
To be sure, there continues to be a powerful minority of arch conservative royalists who despise both Move Forward and Thaksin, and in recent months there have been rumors that Thaksin and Pheu Thai could be taken out by a military coup. With his daughter Paetongtarn having just become prime minister, support for such a move has likely increased. However, unlike the last two coups against Thaksin-backed governments in 2006 and 2014, the Bangkok middle class is by and large opposed not only to Thaksin and Pheu Thai but also to the royal-military establishment. Such social conditions may set the stage for a middle-class led democratic revolution that few have anticipated. But only four years ago few Thais anticipated the rapid growth in support for the most progressive party in the country’s history, and look at where the country stands today.