Thailand’s House of Representatives will vote to select a new prime minister tomorrow, the body announced yesterday, a week after Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra’s was removed from office by the Constitutional Court.
The announcement, which was published over the signature of the secretary-general of the Thai parliament, capped off an unusually hectic day of political maneuvering, even by the country’s recent standards. Earlier in the day, the opposition People’s Party announced that it would support the conservative Bhumjaithai party in forming a government, in return for a promise to dissolve parliament within four months.
In response, the ruling Pheu Thai party is attempting to block Anutin by petitioning the king to dissolve parliament immediately and approve a snap election. Pheu Thai has been struggling to shore up its shaky coalition since Bhumjaithai withdrew from its coalition in June, after the politically damaging leak of a recorded phone call between Paetongtarn and Cambodia’s former leader Hun Sen. Paetongtarn’s conduct in the call led to her removal from office last week
Bhumjaithai’s ambitious leader Anutin Charnvirakul confirmed yesterday that with the support of the People’s Party, his party had the votes to secure his selection as prime minister. “We know that the formation of this government that will proceed from now on, we know that the People’s Party has cooperated and made sacrifices in finding a solution for Thailand during a period of crises,” Anutin said, according to Reuters.
The two parties have reportedly agreed to five points. In addition to agreeing to dissolve parliament within four months, Bhumjaithai has pledged not take any action that will lead towards building a majority government. (Anutin stated that the Bhumjaithai-led coalition now has the support of 146 lawmakers, meaning that it will be unable to pass legislation without the support of the opposition.)
Two other points referred to the drafting of a new constitution to replace the military-drafted 2017 Constitution. If the Constitutional Court rules that drafting a new constitution requires a referendum first, Bhumjaithai has agreed to organize this prior to the next general election. But if no such referendum is necessary, the two parties will begin amending the constitution and setting up an elected constitution drafting assembly before the election. According to the final point, the People’s Party has pledged that it will not join the government, remaining in opposition.
According to the Thai Constitution, the appointment of the next prime minister requires a simple majority in the 500-seat House of Representatives, but candidates are limited to those nominated by the parties ahead of the 2023 general election. This rules out the People’s Party, which despite holding 143 seats in the House, did not participate in the election. Its predecessor, the Move Forward Party (MFP), was dissolved by the Constitutional Court last year, after which the People’s Party inherited its seats.
Instead, the People’s Party and its leader Natthaphong Ruengpanyawut have attempted to use their leverage to attempt a more fundamental solution to Thailand’s perpetual political crises. After Paetongtarn’s removal from office, the party announced that it would support any government that promised to call a referendum on the drafting of a new constitution, and to dissolve parliament within four months.
Given the MFP’s strong showing in 2023, the party has good reason to be confident of prevailing in an early election, which, if everything goes according to plan, could take place in early 2026.
Both Bhumjaithai and Pheu Thai accepted the People’s Party’s conditions, and after two days of deliberation, the People’s Party announced its decision yesterday.
The party did not explain why it chose Bhumjaithai, a right-wing party that is in nearly every sense anathema to its own progressive politics, but it is likely that it did so in revenge for Pheu Thai’s betrayal of the MFP after the 2023 election. After the military-dominated Senate blocked the MFP from forming government with Pheu Thai’s support, Pheu Thai threw in its lot with conservative and military-backed parties, with which it formed the current coalition – an act that many in the progressive movement view as a betrayal.
“We do not trust any prime minister to run the country,” Natthaphong stated, as per The Nation. “We need a prime minister who will move forward with dissolving Parliament and drafting a new constitution. This is the People’s Party’s decision, focused on the country’s future rather than popularity and personal risk.”
Sure enough, following Natthaphong’s announcement, Acting Prime Minister Phumtham Wechayachai told the press that he had submitted a royal decree to dissolve the House of Representatives, in a bid to prevent Anutin being selected as prime minister.
However, there is considerable legal uncertainty as to whether an acting prime minister has the power to make such a move, and there were reports that the Office of the Privy Council had returned Phumtham’s draft royal decree, citing legal deficiencies and procedural irregularities.
Even if Phumtham has the power to dissolve parliament, it is also unclear whether a new prime minister, if selected in time, has the power to rescind such a request. “These are uncharted waters,” Thai political observer Ken Lohatepanont wrote in his recap of yesterday’s events. “We’re in constitutional crisis territory here, because we truly do not know what will happen next – no acting government has ever tried to dissolve parliament.”
In any event, unless King Vajiralongkorn agrees to dissolve parliament today, the prime ministerial vote seems set to go ahead and Anutin to become Thailand’s 32nd prime minister, although most likely a short-lived one.