Some 40 million voters in Thailand delivered on Sunday an unmistakable message: They are unhappy with nine years of military rule and want change. The official results aren’t expected for weeks, and there will be a period of intense jockeying among the parties to form a governing coalition. But the generals who have ruled the country since 2014 should respect the people’s unequivocal verdict and return to the barracks. This is far from guaranteed, even though, in the long term, it is neither in Thailand’s or in its military’s interest to suppress the popular will.
The pro-democracy camp’s success on Sunday was expected from opinion polling, but the depth of its victory was breathtaking. The urban-based, progressive Move Forward party was projected to come out on top with around 151 seats, followed by Pheu Thai, the latest iteration of the populist political machine of an ousted prime minister now in exile, Thaksin Shinawatra, with around 141 seats.
Mr. Thaksin’s parties have won every free Thai election for about the past two decades, but the military has repeatedly either kept the party from power through the courts or ousted it in coups. Pheu Thai is now led by Mr. Thaksin’s daughter, Paetongtarn Shinawatra, 36, who had been leading in many pre-election polls.
Move Forward is led by Pita Limjaroenrat, a 42-year-old Harvard Kennedy School alumnus and a business executive. The late surge of support for Move Forward appears to have come from millions of first-time voters who might have also been tired of the dynastic politics represented by Pheu Thai, meaning that voters opted for a major political realignment.
Smaller opposition parties also scored well, and all the pro-democracy parties seem willing to work together to form what should be an overwhelming bloc for change.
The biggest loser appears to be current Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, who led the 2014 coup and retired from the military to be an ostensible civilian government leader. His United Thai Nation Party is poised to come in fifth place in the constituency vote, with only around 36 parliamentary seats. Mr. Prayuth, who polls show is widely unpopular after nine years in power, had campaigned on a promise of continuity — something Thai voters clearly rejected. Mr. Prayuth’s party came in behind even a rival military party led by his erstwhile deputy, Prawit Wongsuwan, who is also a retired general.
The two main opposition parties were both considered unpalatable to the military. The generals disliked and feared Pheu Thai for its populist brand of politics that particularly appeals to poor Thais in the country’s northeast. Both Mr. Thaksin and later his sister were deposed. But Move Forward represents an even bigger threat to the military and the conservative elements in Thai society, for example by pledging to end military conscription and modify the country’s strict “lèse-majesté” law that makes it illegal to criticize the king.
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End of carousel- D.C. Council reverses itself on school resource officers. Good.
- Virginia makes a mistake by pulling out of an election fraud detection group.
- Vietnam sentences another democracy activist.
- Biden has a new border plan.
The D.C. Council voted on Tuesday to stop pulling police officers out of schools, a big win for student safety. Parents and principals overwhelmingly support keeping school resource officers around because they help de-escalate violent situations. D.C. joins a growing number of jurisdictions, from Montgomery County, Md., to Denver, in reversing course after withdrawing officers from school grounds following George Floyd’s murder. Read our recent editorial on why D.C. needs SROs.
Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) just withdrew Virginia from a data-sharing consortium, ERIC, that made the commonwealth’s elections more secure, following Republicans in seven other states in falling prey to disinformation peddled by election deniers. Former GOP governor Robert F. McDonnell made Virginia a founding member of ERIC in 2012, and until recently conservatives touted the group as a tool to combat voter fraud. D.C. and Maryland plan to remain. Read our recent editorial on ERIC.
In Vietnam, a one-party state, democracy activist Tran Van Bang was sentenced on Friday to eight years in prison and three years probation for writing 39 Facebook posts. The court claimed he had defamed the state in his writings, according to Radio Free Asia. In the past six years, at least 60 bloggers and activists have been sentenced to between 4 and 15 years in prison under the law, Human Rights Watch found. Read more of the Editorial Board’s coverage on autocracy and Vietnam.
The Department of Homeland Security has provided details of a plan to prevent a migrant surge along the southern border. The administration would presumptively deny asylum to migrants who failed to seek it in a third country en route — unless they face “an extreme and imminent threat” of rape, kidnapping, torture or murder. Critics allege that this is akin to an illegal Trump-era policy. In fact, President Biden is acting lawfully in response to what was fast becoming an unmanageable flow at the border. Read our most recent editorial on the U.S. asylum system.
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That so many Thais, particularly young people, were willing to vote for a party that openly advocated a change to the law protecting the once-revered monarchy is itself a sign of the dramatic change underway in Thailand. The question now is whether the conservative forces, including the military and the monarchy, will respect the people’s wishes. Mr. Pita on Sunday said his party had no intention of backing down on its campaign pledges.
It’s not a given in Thailand that the soldiers will stand down, despite their resounding repudiation at the polls. Under the constitution they designed to guarantee a dominant military role in politics, the next prime minister will be chosen not just by the 500-member House of Representatives. A 250-member Senate, appointed entirely be the ruling junta, also has a vote for prime minister, meaning the military can still suppress this popular surge.
So while many Thais are elated, some caution — and vigilance among leaders in the United States and other democracies — is still needed. One need to look at Thailand’s neighbor, Myanmar, where the popular party of Nobel Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi scored a landslide victory in elections in November 2020, only to see the military take power three months later and annul the result. Myanmar has been gripped by civil war ever since.
The tragedy there should be a cautionary note to any generals in Thailand thinking of defying their country’s legitimate election results. As the Thai political system wrangles over Sunday’s results, the Biden administration and other foreign observers should make this point clearly and often.