BANGKOK, Thailand — After nearly five years of junta rule, Thailand’s bitter election season comes down to Sunday’s vote, pitting pro-democracy “scum of the earth” forces against the military government’s “dictator” prime minister as a key U.S. ally makes the uncertain journey back to civilian rule.
But for all the colorful campaign rhetoric, an upstart party calling for legalizing recreational marijuana may end up deciding the governing coalition after the vote.
Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, the former army chief who now heads a military-dominated ruling junta, is hoping the long-delayed vote will cement his authority, bolstered in part by the close alliance he has sought to cultivate with the Trump administration.
The election calculus has been scrambled by the dissolution of a key party aligned with exiled former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, after an ill-fated attempt to nominate a princess as one of its lead candidates was rejected by election officials. While the military government has pulled out all the stops — and rewritten the constitution — in a bid to keep control, the fading of Mr. Thaksin’s Thai Raksa Party has cleared the way for a number of intriguing alternatives.
These include the bold Future Forward Party, whose 40-year-old prime ministerial candidate, Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit, has proven an unexpected hit with Thailand’s younger voters. The wealthy Mr. Thanathorn — his family owns a major auto parts manufacturer — wants to end the military draft, slash the army’s budget, punish officers who stage coups, and rewrite the restrictive constitution Mr. Prayuth pushed through two years ago.
The youth vote could be especially critical Sunday — some 7 million young Thais will be voting for the first time.
And then there’s the moderate, mid-sized Bhumjaithai Party, which is positioning itself as a post-election kingmaker, saying it may join the government in exchange for the right to name the next prime minister.
Bhumjaithai’s popularity soared after demanding Mr. Prayuth lift restrictions on recently legalized medical marijuana and also allow recreational use and public growing and selling to the government for retail distribution.
Farmers are suffering low prices for rice, rubber and other crops. Bhumjaithai leader Anutin Charnvirakul, a construction tycoon, predicts marijuana will be Thailand’s most profitable cash crop.
But despite allowing the elections to go forward, the military-led junta is showing no signs of being ready to cede power gracefully. After some candidates demanded cutting the military budget, Army Chief Gen. Apirat Kongsompong told them to listen to “Scum of the Earth,” an anti-communist propaganda ditty broadcast by a military regime during the bloody 1970s.
Gen. Apirat’s invoking of the patriotic song and its sudden blaring on 120 military radio stations in February rattled anti-junta politicians, activists, and local media — especially because he is the son of a former army supreme commander who led a 1991 coup.
But some of Mr. Prayuth’s fans were pleased.
“They are the scum of the earth,” hissed a usually mild-mannered physician in his hospital office, cursing anti-junta candidates.
“I am very stressed about this election. Who will win?”
Growing impatience
Many ordinary Thais still credit the military government with ending decades of regular, deadly, political street clashes between rival civilian factions.
But there is also palpable resentment over Mr. Prayuth’s crackdowns against political activity, free speech and other basic rights.
Dissidents have been taken to army bases for “attitude adjustment.” Some had their assets frozen.
Mr. Prayuth’s prime ministerial candidacy enjoys support among the military, Bangkok’s elite and middle class, royalists, bureaucrats, and other powerful elements.
But others say that, whatever good Mr. Prayuth accomplished, it’s time for him and the country to move on.
“I know him personally, he is a good man but he has stayed on too long,” one royalist confided during a recent banquet inside the Grand Palace hosted by a Thai princess and attended by Mr. Prayuth, U.S. and other diplomats, the king’s privy council, and others.
“He had to take over the country to bring peace. But now he wants to continue just to be in power, and that’s not the same thing,” she said, sipping champagne.
Whatever the results of Sunday’s vote, Mr. Prayuth’s constitution gives him a powerful backstop. Defense Minister Prawit Wongsuwan is appointing a 250-member, junta-friendly Senate that will have a key say in the election of the next prime minister. The election is limited to 500 House of Representatives’ seats.
After the vote, Mr. Prayuth’s newly created Palang Pracharat Party hopes to join smaller pro-junta parties in the House.
They need 126 House seats, combined with their 250 appointed Senate seats, to secure a majority of the total 750 for Mr. Prayuth to continue as prime minister.
Anti-junta candidates would probably not get any Senate seats. So their coalition needs an improbable 376-seat majority within the House to choose a prime minister.
Issues have not played a major role in the campaign debate so far. All parties promise to help poor people, improve agriculture, end corruption, and upgrade infrastructure.
For nearly five years, the volatile Mr. Prayuth ruled with near-absolute powers, boosted after 2017 by the revised constitution.
But if elected, he likely will face a pro-democracy opposition in the House determined to block his policies and question his previous “dictator” edicts.
Mr. Thaksin, who won landslide elections in 2001 and 2005, is Mr. Prayuth’s ghostly nemesis haunting the polls.
The military’s 2006 coup toppled Mr. Thaksin. He fled overseas dodging prison for a corruption conviction but voters elected pro-Thaksin prime ministers in other elections before the 2014 coup.
Today, the pro-Thaksin Pheu Thai Party offers three prime ministerial candidates, who deny Mr. Thaksin manipulates them.
Pheu Thai “is widely tipped to win the highest number” of House seats and could form a coalition with smaller anti-junta parties, the Bangkok Post reported this month.
But few expect Sunday’s vote to end the political uncertainty here, particularly since Thailand’s election commission isn’t due to announce final results of the vote until May 9. An unexpectedly strong showing by Puea Thai, another party with links to Thaksin Shinawatra, could tempt officials to try to “adjust” the vote.
“Unrest risks will remain largely contained ahead of the king’s coronation in early May; political parties, even Puea Thai, would not want to be seen as disrespecting the monarchy by protesting on the streets,” Harrison Cheng, associate director at the global specialist risk consulting firm Control Risks, wrote this week in Forbes magazine.
But, he added, “all bets are off after that milestone.”
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