The Thai government has promised change.causing chaos

In late April, less than a year after taking office, Thai Prime Minister Suretta Thavisin announced a cabinet reshuffle. The news comes with the sudden resignation of Foreign Minister Panpuri Bahidda-Nkala, followed last week by the resignations of Deputy Foreign Minister Sihasak Phunketkeo and Deputy Finance Minister Krisada Chinavicharana.

The turmoil within the coalition government highlights how polarized and chaotic the country's politics have become since Thailand's general election in May 2023, which was supposed to calm down after a successful vote.

Fresh off the heels of the country's first relatively free elections since the end of military rule in 2018, the reform party Forward, which won the most House seats in the polls, has no chance of actually forming a government. It was never given. . Before leaving power, the junta had enacted a new constitution that required a party to win not only a majority in the lower house, but also a combined majority in the lower house and upper house to take power. Move Forward, which had huge support among young Thais, had no chance, given that almost all of the highly conservative senators owed their positions in the Senate to the former military regime. Ta.

Furious at being removed from power, Move Forward, led by Suretta's Thailand Contribution Party, has launched an open defiance of the cobbled-together ruling coalition, which includes several parties that are openly aligned with the military. caused. When the judiciary, which is aligned with the military, the monarchy, and other conservative elites, tried to defeat the attacks of “Forward,” as it had attacked other democratic parties in the past, the majority of the Thai people My anger grew even more. Twenty-five years. Move Forward's leader has already been found guilty on several criminal charges, which could result in him being banned from Thai politics for 10 years, and the party itself could be formally dissolved.

Despite boiling anger among some Thais over the 2023 election results, if the Suretta government had actually taken major steps to address Thailand's serious problems, the public The strong backlash could have been avoided. These problems include high youth unemployment, a growing number of Thai farmers unable to make a living from production, poor air quality, and an overall economic downturn compared to neighboring countries such as Vietnam and Indonesia. It will be done. Had the government been able to adequately address at least some of these issues, it is likely that even some voters who supported Move Forward would have come to approve of the Sletta government.

But his government has done little to address these issues, and now appears to be in turmoil with a cabinet reshuffle and high-profile resignations. As The Diplomat's Sebastian Strangio pointed out, Phanpuri's decision to resign as foreign minister was all the more shocking because he had just been appointed to head a new task force governing Thailand's approach to the crisis in neighboring Myanmar. It was spot on. He also played a major role in the release of several Thai migrant workers taken hostage by Hamas during the October 7 attack on southern Israel.

The reason for Paanpuri's resignation remains unclear, but he said it was because he lost his concurrent position as deputy prime minister due to a cabinet reshuffle. However, it is noteworthy that he was replaced by Maris Sanjampongsa, a career diplomat with close ties to former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

Thaksin recently returned to Thailand from Dubai, where he lived in self-imposed exile for 17 years after being ousted from power in a military coup in 2006. From afar, however, Thaksin remained the dominant civilian force in Thai politics. family dynasty. His sister Yingluck became prime minister in 2011, but was ousted by the Constitutional Court in a ruling heavily influenced by the military, weeks before the military took power in 2014. Also, his daughter Pethongthan led the Thai Contribution Party's campaign in last year's general election.

Although Thaksin is said to play no role in the Thai Contribution Party, in reality he remains a central figure supporting both the party and the government. His role as a shadow actor who ultimately decides Thailand's contribution policy with little transparency is an added irritation to many Thais about the current government.

Even if Mr. Paanpuri is too private to cede his influence to Thaksin, Mr. Maris seems to have no objection to doing so. Regarding Myanmar, for example, Thaksin appears to be pursuing personal diplomatic initiatives in defiance of official Thai policy. In recent weeks, he has held a series of meetings with groups opposed to Myanmar's military junta, an approach that contradicts the government's official insistence that it is not taking sides in the conflict. Thaksin reportedly even kept Mr. Suretta in the dark about what he was doing, causing embarrassment for the prime minister.

The recent cabinet reshuffle, in which Mr. Sletta gave up his concurrent post as finance minister, is unlikely to reassure anyone that the government is working well together.

However, the decline in the quality of the cabinet due to loyalist politics is just the latest mess the current government has made since taking office last summer. It has also failed to deliver on promises to address Thailand's many ills.

To encourage consumer spending and alleviate poverty, the government had promised to give every Thai citizen 10,000 baht (about $270 at current exchange rates) through a digital wallet. As planned, this measure already looked like a recipe for disaster. Not only is it still unclear how the government will fund internet access and/or smartphones. So it's probably a good thing the government hasn't started on it yet.

What's worse is that the government has not delivered on its promise of large-scale debt relief for many Thai mid-sized businesses and Thai farmers, who have been hit hard by climate change and crop price fluctuations. The government also signaled that it would decentralize Thai politics to give more power to local governments and communities, given Thailand's highly centralized and Bangkok-dominated politics. This decentralization plan also appears to have come to nothing.

At the same time, doing nothing and saying nothing will do anything to restore Thailand's fragile rule of law as courts seek to ban the main opposition party and sentence its leaders on dubious charges. I can't stand it either. Furthermore, the image of the Thailand Contribution Party among many Thais will be greatly damaged. Even though the Thai Contribution Party government has committed democratic backsliding during its time in power, the party and its previously banned predecessors have long been vocal supporters of democracy. The fact that two Thai-contributing governments were overthrown by military coups and de facto coups further enhanced Thailand's pro-democracy credentials. Many Thais now see the country in league with the hated military and other elites. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Thai Contribution Party, which promised during the election campaign to reform its inefficient and large top-ranking military, has been stymied by its rapid and large-scale efforts to do so. .

More broadly, the government has not developed a clear and achievable program to boost Thailand's lagging economic growth. While the country's GDP grew by less than 2% last year, Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines all expanded by more than double that. There is also no mention of employment for young people. Youth employment is expanding not only among Thailand's undereducated youth, but also among graduates of the country's best universities.

Distrusted by many Thais from the start, the PRC and its coalition partners now seem uninterested in real reform, including on social and political issues and the rule of law. The government, which suffers from an increasingly dominant Thaksin faction and a dysfunctional cabinet, is unable to address the grievances of the majority of Thai people. As anger among Thais grows, it seems almost inevitable, given current developments, that the large-scale street protests for which the country is well known will take place.