Shinawatra domination of Thai politics is on

Paetongtarn Sinawatra, 37, youngest daughter of telecom tycoon and former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, has been elected as leader of the ruling party, Pheu Thai Party, on October 27. Her father who was in exile in England for 15 years to avoid imprisonment on corruption charges came back after the May elections when his party formed the government.

Pheu Thai Party was the second largest party as the party that won the majority, Move Forward Party, was not allowed to form the government. Then Pheu Thai Party’s Srettha Thavisin, a rich businessman, was picked up as prime minister by the party. The Pheu Thai Party said that it would not compromise with the army and the parties the army supported, but the party had to compromise. The Pheu Thai Party president, Chonlanan Srikaew, resigned because he broke the promise and the party accepted the army’s support. It is for this reason that Thaksin Shinawatra returned and his sentence was reduced by the pardon Thai king to one year.

Paetongtarn Shinawatra had said after being elected the leader of the party, “We will not give up the original DNA of Pheu Thai, which is bringing policies that we promise to the people to reality. We will make dreams come true. We will make the impossible become possible. We will erase all insults with our irrefutable performance.” Thaksin Shinawatra’s popularity with the poor and the working-class remains strong. That is why, the family’s hold on the party continues despite charges of dynastic politics. Thaksin’s sister, Yingluck Shinawatra, served as prime minister too, and her government was also overthrown by the military in 2014.

Thai politics have been turbulent with the army intervening in the democratic process whenever it felt that the monarchy was under threat. The army is the bastion of conservatism in the country even as the people are restless and they pour into the streets, sometimes even questioning the status of the monarchy. But Thailand’s monarchy has survived even as the democracy found its roots in the country, which has not been colonised. The politics of Thailand then turns on the populism of the kind brought in by Shinawatra.

Thailand has been a key player in the region despite internal political problems. It has a decisive role to play in the Association of South-East Nations (ASEAN) grouping, and it plays a leadership role. Its economy goes through the business cycles of boom and bust – it was the collapse of the Thai baht in 1997 that led to the Asian economic crisis. The country depends on tourism and attracts visitors from the neighbourhood as well as from the West because tourism is a highly developed service industry. When it is doing well, the Thai economy attracts a lot of foreign investment and that makes Bangkok a vibrant market centre.

It is because of its economic vibrancy that most people are restless and in times of economic blues they turn restless and push for political change. Plutocrats like Shinawatra understand the underlying social dynamics of the country and play the populism card effectively. And that is what disturbs the conservatives.

But the popularity of leaders like Shinawatra shows the paradox of how despite charges of corruption, they retain their following among the poor. The emergence of the Move Forward Party shows that people are full of energy and they are not content to accept traditional populism. There is a middle class awakening in the country which wants smart solutions to the economic and political challenges of the country. Thailand’s thriving democracy along with its thriving economy is a contrast to many other countries in the neighbourhood.