The monarcho-military establishment must give Thai voters the change they demand
Worse for the generals and the royalist establishment in cahoots with them, their attempts to suppress Thailand’s democracy are radicalising it. The big winner was not, as predicted, the party of Thaksin Shinawatra, an exiled former prime minister, whose supporters had come first in every Thai election since 2001. It was a newer and more uncompromising liberal force. Pushing back against years of democratic retreat in Asia, Move Forward, as it is called, looks like the generals’ nemesis.
Whether the generals will permit Mr Pita to form the democratic coalition government that Thais have so loudly demanded remains unclear. The regime has stacked the senate with its stooges and given them, in effect, a veto on government formation. Yet exercising it, after this thumping electoral verdict, would be reckless as well as wrong.
Its success is a rebuke not only to the principle of army rule, but also to the regime’s ineptitude. Hobbled by cronyism and graft, Thailand’s economy is creating fewer opportunities and attracting less foreign direct investment than its regional rivals, including Indonesia and Vietnam. Its post-pandemic recovery is the slowest of any major economy in South-East Asia.
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