Thai voters handed the ruling Democrat Party (DP) and its backers in the military and royalist establishment a crushing defeat in the July 3^rd general election. With around 96% of the votes counted, the DP had won just 160 out of 500 parliamentary seats, compared with 262 for the opposition Puea Thai party. The election outcome is a triumph for Thailand’s opposition forces, but it fails to reconcile the wishes of a majority of the electorate with the interests of the political establishment. As a result, the risk of a reactionary backlash is substantial, and the prospects for a lasting resolution of Thailand’s destabilising political impasse remain bleak.

The main implication of the July 3^rd election result is that the intense power struggle that has deeply destabilised Thailand’s political scene over the past five years is set to continue. Indeed, Thailand has now turned full circle since a military coup in September 2006 wrested power from a flawed yet democratically elected government headed by Thaksin Shinawatra. The surprise landslide victory of the pro-Thaksin Puea Thai party signals that the establishment’s effort to install its own version of diluted democracy—one that inherently stifles the power of civilian politicians supported by the popular masses—has failed.

Puea Thai had headed the pre-election opinion polls and was widely expected to win, but the scale of its victory came as a surprise. Although the decisiveness of the result means that there will be no lingering questions of legitimacy when the party forms a government in the coming weeks, there is a great deal of uncertainty as to how establishment forces will respond.

The justification for the military’s power play back in late 2006 was to put down a popular political movement that posed a grave threat to the royalist establishment’s traditional claims on privilege and power at a time of impending royal succession. Thaksin may still be in self-imposed exile, but with his youngest sister and leader of Puea Thai, Yingluck Shinawatra, set to become the country’s first female prime minister, there is little doubt that he will be pulling strings from behind the scenes. The apparent risks to the establishment therefore remain undimmed. Thailand’s political scene, which has been disrupted by 18 successful or attempted military coups since the end of absolute monarchy in 1932, is thus primed for further turbulence.

In the short term, the focus will be on Puea Thai’s effort to form a new government, on how Yingluck performs, and also on how the DP will recover from its devastating loss. Puea Thai has indicated that it does not intend to form a single-party government, and on July 4^th announced a coalition with four small parties, Chart Thai Pattana, Chart Pattana Phua Pandin, Palang Chon and Mahachon, giving it 299 seats in the lower house. There was no place in the Puea Thai-led coalition for the Bhum Jai Thai party, a breakaway faction of a former pro-Thaksin party. The party won 34 seats on July 3^rd, but relations with Thaksin have been strained since it switched sides in December 2008, enabling the DP to form a coalition government.

Abhisit Vejjajiva, the outgoing prime minister, resigned as DP leader on July 4^th after conceding defeat graciously. Before becoming prime minister in December 2008, Abhisit was widely seen as a great hope for Thailand’s political future, given his reputation for integrity and his intellectual capacity. However, he came to office in dubious circumstances, with his promotion from leader of the opposition to head of the government owing much to behind-the-scenes meddling by leading military figures and a dramatic shift in allegiance on the part of several long-time Thaksin allies. Abhisit’s handling of anti-government protests in April-May 2010, when around 90 people were killed in a military crackdown, also damaged his credibility. Abhisit’s most likely replacement as DP leader is Korn Chatikavanij, who was finance minister in the previous government, but the many similarities between Abhisit and Korn mean that this change would be of little help to the DP in attempting to reinvent itself as a genuine challenger to Puea Thai.

Short-term risks

Media attention in the coming weeks will inevitably be on the photogenic Yingluck, a political neophyte who has much to prove to her detractors but who already appears to have won over Thaksin’s loyal support base. Behind the scenes, meanwhile, there will be intense negotiations between Thaksin’s political allies (if not the man himself) on one side and military leaders and royalist figures on the other over how they are going to work together. (There has been much speculation that these negotiations have already been going on for some time.) The military will be looking for some guarantee that there will be little or no political interference in its operations, and also that Thaksin and his allies in government will not seek recrimination for the 2006 coup and the deadly crackdown on anti-government protesters last year. In return, the leading generals would no doubt pledge to allow Puea Thai to form a government without the threat of military intervention.

If such a deal is reached, or has been reached already, it would lower the risk of a reactionary backlash aimed at preventing Puea Thai from forming a government or staying in power. The judiciary could yet have some influence on the final make-up of the lower house, but the extent of Puea Thai’s victory means that it would not be severely weakened by some successful candidates being “red-carded” for electoral violations. The main risk to Puea Thai is that the courts repeat history: having already dissolved two pro-Thaksin parties for the misdemeanours of individual party members, the courts could yet again find some way to push for the dissolution of the third iteration of a pro-Thaksin party on similar grounds.

Even assuming some working arrangement between Puea Thai and the military is agreed upon, it could prove to be short-lived—particularly if Yingluck seeks to secure an amnesty for her brother or attempts to overturn his conviction for corruption (which Thaksin claims was politically motivated), thus paving the way for his return. Thaksin is unlikely to push for a quick return to the country, but he has made it clear that he does intend to return at some stage and stands ready to “work for the people”. Although Thailand’s generals might be more reluctant to intervene directly in politics following their failure to deliver stable and popular government after the 2006 coup, the prospect of Thaksin gaining a renewed political foothold and returning to office remains anathema to many in the military/royal establishment. Many of Thaksin’s opponents regard him as a republican figure who, if left unchecked, could threaten the existence of the monarchy. Others may have concerns over the possibility that Thaksin would seek to exact revenge, for example by launching investigations into his opponents’ wealth and political activities.

In such a highly charged climate, the risks to a smooth transfer of power from one elected government to another, and to political stability after the election, are substantial. The cycle of partisan protests of the past few years—an alternating pattern of pro-Thaksin “redshirts” and pro-monarchy “yellowshirts” taking to the streets to demand the removal of the government in question, depending on which party happened to be in power at the time—could resume. The stridently anti-Thaksin yellow-shirted movement, the People’s Alliance for Democracy, has lost much of its appeal over the past year, but it could regain significance in the aftermath of the DP’s defeat. This would make it difficult for the pro-Thaksin government to be effective.

Although all of Thailand’s political parties have talked of the need for a period of national reconciliation, the election was never really expected to heal the fundamental class tensions that are dividing the country. In fact, the election result could exacerbate these differences. Thailand has yet to experience the explosive scenario in which rival camps of protesters fight each other. However, given that Thaksin is such a deeply polarising figure, idolised by the rural masses and loathed by the urban middle classes, further bouts of serious social unrest cannot be ruled out, particularly if he returns to the country. If the violence were severe, this could in turn prompt army intervention, renewing coup-prone Thailand’s long-running pattern of weak civilian government interrupted by military rule.