Thai PM Switching Parties in Bid to Keep Job After Next Election

Patpicha Tanakasempipat
·3 min read
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(Bloomberg) -- Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-Ocha, a general who first came to power in 2014, announced Friday that he will seek to retain his position with the help of a new party in a vote expected in the first half of 2023.

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Prayuth, 68, will be a prime minister candidate of the Ruamthai Sarngchart party set up last year, he told reporters at his office in Bangkok. This means the premier is splitting from the military-backed Palang Pracharath party, which currently leads a coalition government and helped him stay in power following a 2019 election.

Speculation has swirled around Prayuth’s political future after a recent court ruling barred him from holding office beyond April 2025 even if he stays prime minister, based on what the judges determined as the starting date for a maximum eight-year tenure. Meanwhile, his popularity has waned in opinion polls, reportedly prompting Palang Pracharath to instead consider replacing him with Deputy Prime Minister Prawit Wongsuwan, 77, who is also a former army chief.

“I have to set the record straight to end the confusion and chaos and move ahead toward the election,” Prayuth said, adding that he and Prawit aren’t in conflict and Palang Pracharath isn’t an enemy. “The ties between soldiers are so deep. This bond I have with him cannot ever be undone. He feels the same way.”

Prayuth was given a reprieve earlier this year after five weeks of suspension by the Constitutional Court, which ruled in September that his premiership officially began in April 2017 — when the country’s latest charter became effective — not when he seized power in 2014. But the legal decision also means he can’t finish another four-year term.

READ: Thai PM Stays in Power as Court Finds No Breach in Term Rule

Prayuth also faces an uphill task amid voter discontent stemming from high inflation and an uneven recovery in Thailand’s pandemic-hit economy. In recent surveys, Prayuth significantly lagged the opposition Pheu Thai party’s Paetongtarn Shinawatra, daughter of Thaksin Shinawatra, a former premier ousted in an earlier coup and whose sister was later prime minister until the 2014 putsch led by Prayuth.

A date for the next election must be confirmed by March, with many analysts expecting the actual vote in May.

While many surveys show opposition parties holding an edge, election rules still favor military-backed groups. That’s because the current constitution, promulgated after the coup, gives the 250-member Senate, comprising mostly establishment allies, some selection powers when it comes to choosing the prime minister.

READ: Thaksin-Linked Party Vows Higher Wages With Thai Polls Looming

The current Palang Pracharath-led coalition has about 247 members in what’s normally the 500-person House of Representatives. But because of recent party switches, which require lawmakers to resign their seats, the House is down to 439 members. More than a third of the exits were from Palang Pracharath legislators moving to the Bhumjaithai party, which is known for leading Thailand’s cannabis-decriminalization policy and has sought to play a kingmaker role in elections.

Thailand will use a two-ballot system in the next polls, with one vote cast for a constituency candidate and another for a party. Under new electoral rules that favor bigger parties, 400 parliamentary seats will be given first to winning constituency candidates and the other 100 party-list seats will be allocated based on the proportion of votes that each party receives.

(Updates throughout.)

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