Supporters of Thailand’s former prime minister, Yingluck Shinawatra, outside the Supreme Court after she failed to show up for a verdict, Bangkok, Thailand, Aug. 25, 2017 (AP photo by Wason Wanichakorn).
The Shinawatras May Be Gone, But It’s Too Soon to Write Off Their Party in Thailand
Joshua Kurlantzick
Monday, Sept. 18, 2017
World Politics Review
Thais waited anxiously throughout the summer for the conclusion of the trial of former Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, who was removed by a military coup in May 2014. The charges Yingluck faced—mismanaging a rice subsidy scheme that wound up losing some $8 billion—were somewhat unusual, since she was not personally accused of corruption in the program. In some ways, she was being charged with making bad decisions in government.
But a central objective of the junta since it took power has been to eradicate the influence of the Shinawatra family in Thai politics by breaking the bond between them and their base of mostly rural supporters. Populist policies, such as the rice subsidy scheme, are key to that bond, having been championed by Yingluck and her brother, former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, for 17 years now. The charges appeared, in part, like one way to crush Yingluck and her allies.
Yingluck’s supporters expected her to show up in court on Aug. 25 to hear the verdict and accept whatever ruling came down. She had remained in Thailand since the coup. In July, she posted on Facebook, “I’m still strong, and ready to fight to prove my innocence.” Thousands of her supporters trekked to the court in Bangkok to wait for the decision.
By late morning, it became apparent Yingluck wasn’t going to appear in court. In her absence, the court postponed the verdict until Sept. 27, although no one thinks the former prime minister will show up then, either.
No one knows for sure where she is right now, but reports suggest she fled Thailand several days before the court’s August decision, probably to neighboring Cambodia. She is likely to wind up in Dubai, where her brother lives, having fled Thailand himself nine years ago.
Yingluck’s flight was the best possible outcome of the case for the junta, which may have known about her plans and allowed Yingluck to flee. Some military leaders reportedly had worried that jailing Yingluck could have made her a martyr and actually boosted her Pheu Thai Party’s popularity before elections that are supposedly going to be held in 2018, riling up the rural base and sparking higher turnout. There was also a slim possibility that, if Yingluck had come to court, she could have been found not guilty, which would have been an embarrassment for the generals. Or, she could have come to court, been found guilty and gotten some kind of suspended sentence, which still might have angered Pheu Thai supporters and provoked sympathy for Yingluck.
The junta can now claim that Yingluck and her party really were terrible, corrupt managers of the country’s purse—and that they flout Thai justice. The same day Yingluck didn’t appear in court, her former commerce minister was sentenced to 42 years in jail on related charges. Junta leaders can lump Yingluck in with her brother, a telecommunications tycoon who skipped bail when he fled in 2008, instead of facing corruption charges that he also claimed were political.
Some Thai observers are suggesting that the Shinawatra family is done with politics, while leaving open the question of whether Yingluck’s exit has crippled her party, too. Greg Raymond of Australian National University called Yingluck’s flight “the end of the Shinawatras,” though he admitted that their ability to appeal to the rural masses and reduce Bangkok’s influence had changed Thai politics forever.
But any political obituaries for the Pheu Thai Party seem dubious. Despite various name changes over the past 17 years, the party has remained the same Thaksinite, populist organization—one that can rebound from defeats by the armed forces. It has shown that it can win elections in highly charged political climates, with its top leaders jailed or in exile. In 2007, in fact, a year after a previous coup ousted Thaksin from his post as prime minister, Pheu Thai—then called the People’s Power Party—won a significant victory in national elections that put it again in control of parliament.
Now, in the run-up to potential elections in 2018, Pheu Thai will face even tougher repression than it did a decade ago, and the junta may maneuver to help more pro-military parties during campaign season. Yet as in 2007, Pheu Thai retains by far the most impressive get-out-the-vote operation in the country. The second most popular party, the Democrat Party, has not been able to win a national election in 20 years.
In addition, over the years Pheu Thai and its previous iterations have proven able to survive without a Shinawatra at the helm, suggesting that it has a deep reservoir of support for its populist ideas. Three years of junta rule are unlikely to destroy the backing for Pheu Thai’s policies: historically, large-scale social welfare programs, cheap credit and a more equitable use of Thailand’s budget, so that the state supports development outside of Bangkok and its environs, which are far richer than the rest of the country. The junta has instead tried to copy some of Pheu Thai’s populist rhetoric, to little avail.
To be sure, the Shinawatras are the most famous people in the party leadership, and it helps to have a Shinawatra at the top of the ticket at election time. But in the 2007 vote, Pheu Thai won with Samak Sundaravej at its helm. A former Bangkok governor and deputy prime minister in a previous, pre-Shinawatra era government, Samak was a veteran politician with plenty of charisma. But he also had major liabilities. He was thin-skinned and had been dogged for decades by accusations that he helped foment violence by right-wing groups against student protesters in Bangkok in 1976.
Choosing Samak also showed that Pheu Thai’s top party members are relatively flexible and able to co-opt prominent Thai politicians who are not naturally aligned with the party’s priorities. Samak had been known as an archconservative, not historically a backer of populist economic and social policies. Still, he had built a relationship with top party leaders and pledged in 2007 to support their populist program as prime minister.
In some respects, Pheu Thai could actually be better off running for an election without any Shinawatras at the helm of the campaign. It could compete for votes in the north and northeast of Thailand and in poorer parts of Bangkok without having to face accusations from rival parties that Pheu Thai is simply a vehicle for Shinawatra-worship. In addition, the party still has a bench of potential leaders, like former party deputy Sudarat Keyuraphan or former Education Minister Chaturon Chaisang.
It’s unclear, though, whether an election will happen at all, let alone whether the junta would allow these other potential Pheu Thai leaders to lead. Chaturon, like many other party figures, still faces charges in military courts. Some observers think Yingluck fleeing will embolden the junta to step up its repression even further, arresting hundreds more top Pheu Thai members and supporters.
But with Yingluck likely out of Thailand, the junta may feel relieved and might even allow the 2018 election to proceed in a somewhat freer political environment than if Yingluck still resided in the kingdom. The armed forces may feel that Pheu Thai has been so crippled, it cannot pull off a big enough election victory to take the whole lower house of parliament. But given the party’s resilience in the past, underestimating the opposition would be a mistake.
Joshua Kurlantzick is senior fellow for Southeast Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations.
