The Rules Change but the Players Don't: Factional Politics and Thailand's March 2019 Elections.

• Author: Sirivunnabood, Punchada

The 2017 Constitution is Thailand's twentieth charter since the end of absolute monarchy in 1932. (1) Supporters of the new Constitution argued it would mitigate political corruption and reconcile the political divisions which have ravaged Thailand's fractious political landscape for more than a decade. The drafters of the charter--who were appointed by the 2014 coup leaders known as the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) (2)--claimed that new provisions would reduce corruption and promote political reform and strong party institutionalization. (3) With regard to the latter, the drafters included many new articles in the Constitution, for example, the establishment of local party branches, the implementation of primary elections, the recruitment of party members and the requirement for parties to collect membership fees. Political parties were no longer to act as ad hoc electoral institutions that were dominated by elite individuals. Voters were expected to experience a sense of belonging to a political party, which would also result in greater party loyalty during electoral contests. The constitutional drafters claimed that these idealized standards for political parties would replace old-style factional politics and regional groupings in national politics. The implementation of these new laws would also eliminate vote-buying, vague policy platforms, unstable and ideologically incoherent coalition governments and patronage politics in the party system.

The results of the 24 March 2019 elections, however, suggest contradictory outcomes. Old-style politics continues to dominate the political landscape, particularly in the pro-junta Palang Pracharat party. Factional politics and unstable coalition government continue to characterize Thai politics, and vote-buying still prevails. (4) Negotiations over the allocation of cabinet seats among factions within the government party, and between coalition and government parties, caused a four-month delay in the formation of the cabinet. More importantly, factions continue to play a significant role in the Thai political arena.

Over the years, a considerable number of articles, dissertations and books have been written to explain Thai political parties in terms of their internal dynamics and factionalism. (5) Those works seek to explain the relationships between political parties and factions with regards to resource allocation. To win elections, weak political parties with vague policy platforms and patronage politics required financial assistance, resource allocations and political linkages to party factions. Political parties were organized around individual members of parliament (MPs) and factions. These political relations frequently led to vote-buying and allowed factions to develop at the expense of strong party organizations.

These old methods were effective in attracting voters during elections prior to the period of political reform in 1997. After the promulgation of the 1997 Constitution, however, voting patterns changed. Voters cast their ballots according to criteria that went beyond individual candidates and the patronage system. Voters gave more weight to the party's policy, its ideology and the visions of its leaders before making their decision at the polling stations. (6) Although factions continued to play a role in party organization, political parties, especially the former pro-Thaksin ones (i.e. Thai Rak Thai, Phalang Prachachon and Pheu Thai), could undermine the power of internal factions and regional groupings within the party by securing a majority of seats, leading to the formation of grand coalitions and the successful implementation of populist policies. (7) By creating populist policies that directly benefitted rural people, the former pro-Thaksin parties were able to take credit for enhancing the quality of people's lives at the expense of the provincial and local elites who had previously claimed such distribution of resources as a personal achievement rather than the result of party patronage. To a certain degree, the success of policy implementation allowed political parties to depend on the direct support from voters instead of relying on factions and powerful local figures. (8)

In the 2019 elections, however, the pattern of relationships between voters and parties returned to old-style factional domination. By anticipating that the party might receive far fewer seats than the opposition parties, Palang Pracharat applied old political tactics in the new political environment. Prior to the 2019 elections, Palang Pracharat attracted a large number of factions and powerful provincial and local elites together with their vote canvassing networks from other political parties. Replicating Thaksin's establishment of Thai Rak Thai in 2001, Palang Pracharat succeeded in recruiting 82 candidates (including 19 former ministers and 62 former parliamentarians and senators) from more than 20 factions that had campaigned for Pheu Thai, Democrat, Bhumjaithai, Phalang Chon and Chartthaipattana parties in previous elections. (9) In addition, the party also absorbed local politicians controlling their own networks of vote canvassers and sought support from local chao pho (bosses). (10)

According to the Election Commission of Thailand (ECT), more than 171 former parliamentarians switched party allegiance to contest the 2019 elections. (11) More than 65 MPs from Pheu Thai joined other political parties, with 40 of them defecting to Palang Pracharat. Twenty-six former Democrat politicians switched their allegiances to other political parties, with 14 moving to Palang Pracharat. Other old political parties, including Chartthaipattana and Bhumjaithai, also lost some MPs to Palang Pracharat, but managed to attract MPs from other political parties.

Party switching among faction members before the election is a legacy of Thai politics. Party members lack party loyalty and are often persuaded to move to a new party that is able to deliver more resources and improve their chances of electoral success. Strong factions are frequently persuaded to join new and powerful political parties. Most new parties in Thailand do not develop strong party organizations with mass bases, local offices and cohesive policies. They instead try to attract established factions and successful former MPs from other political parties as a short-cut to win the election. This can be seen from the formation of previous pro-military and major parties such as the Samakhitham Party in 1992, Saha Pracha Thai in 1969 and Thai Rak Thai in 2001. (12)

As with its predecessors, Palang Pracharat attracted a large number of factions to form the party. Which factions switched to Palang Pracharat? How did these factions support Palang Pracharat to win the election? Could General Prayut control the factions within his party as Thaksin did in Thai Rak Thai? And why have factional politics continued to survive even though the 2017 constitutional drafters attempted to promote strong party organizations to replace old-style factional politics? These questions need to be addressed to understand the factional politics within Palang Pracharat.

This article begins by providing an overview of the factions that switched to Palang Pracharat. It then moves on to examine the role of major factions in providing financial resources and political networks for the party before highlighting how factions exercised their power during negotiations over cabinet formation and how Prime Minister Prayut exercised his power in responding to these challenges. The article concludes by suggesting that long-standing political factions continued to play important roles in Thai politics after the 2014 coup. Although the 2017 Constitution introduced many new provisions to reduce the impact of factions, old patterns of factional politics continue to prevail in Thailand's new political landscape. Instead of building a strong party organization, Palang Pracharat chose to rely on factions for resources, campaign networks and their hua khanaen (vote canvasser) system. The relationships between parties and factions give factional leaders bargaining power, particularly over the distribution of cabinet seats within the party quota. This led to the disputes over cabinet seats among party factions and may later lead to instability in Prayut's government.

The 2019 Elections: New MPs, Old Factions

New Faces in Parliament

A large crowd of candidates competed in the March 2019 elections. More than 280 MPs were elected for the first time. Twenty per cent of the 288 new MPs are from Palang Pracharat. New candidates also won in other major political parties: 28 per cent from the Future Forward party, 15 per cent from Pheu Thai, 11 per cent from Bhumjaithai but only 4 per cent from the Democrat Party. (13) It was surprising that most of the younger first-time candidates from the Democrat Party lost in the elections. During the campaign, the Democrat Party promoted a group of younger candidates called the "New Dems". This group consisted of 21 younger party members led by Parit Wacharasindhu or I-tim (meaning "ice cream"), a nephew of former Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva and Surabot Leekpai, son of the Democrat's chief adviser and former Prime Minister Chuan Leekpai. The group hoped to connect with eight million first-time voters. After most of its members lost the election, the group was dissolved in June 2019 and some moved to join the Young Democrat Programme. (14)

Aside from these new candidates, 212 former MPs (amounting to 42 per cent of the 500 parliamentary seats) were also elected in the 2019 elections. Approximately 43 per cent of former MPs who managed to gain a seat ran under the Pheu Thai banner, 27 per cent were from Palang Pracharat, and 18 per cent were from the Democrat Party. Table 1 shows the number of new and old MPs from major political parties who competed in the elections.

Old Faces and Factions

Although a...