The conundrum of a dominant party in Thailand
| Author | Siripan Nogsuan Sawasdee |
| Published date | 01 March 2019 |
| Date | 01 March 2019 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/2057891118774643 |
| Subject Matter | Research articles |
Research article
The conundrum of a dominant
party in Thailand
Siripan Nogsuan Sawasdee
Chulalongkorn University, Thailand
Abstract
Although Thaksin Shinawatra’s three political parties, together called “the TSP” in this article,
overwhelmingly won all four elections between 2001 and 2011, explaining their dominance is a
challenge. Nevertheless, this article attempts to shed some light on how the TSP politicized already
latent cleavages, namely the basic split between the lower-middle class and the rural poor versus
mostly Sino-Thai Bangkokians and the urban middle class, and made them even more significant.
After the TSP was dissolved by court order following the 2006 military coup, these deep divides
transformed into two major cleavages, namely the dominating center-local dimension which pits
Bangkokian and the urban pole against the provincial pole and the royalist and traditional estab-
lishment pole against pro-populist politicians. The TSP’s ability to incorporate certain demands into
its agendas pointed to its power to manipulate these cleavages. At the same time, its capacity to
organizeand mobilize certain groups deepenedthose divisions and allowedthe party to win elections
without having to institutionalize the party. The TSP’s failure to develop a strong organizational
structure waspartly a result of frequent coupsd’etat as well as its centralizedstyle of leadership. The
TSP’s reach across groups spanning these two cleavages would allow the TSP to win the upcoming
election without having to embrace the dynamics of change in voters’ preferences. However, the
precariouslybalanced relationshipbetween the TSP and its supportershas to be carefully maintained,
or the existing social cleavages may be increasingly difficult to sustain if new political parties emerge.
Keywords
dominant party, Thai party system, Thai politics, Thaksin Shinawatra, social cleavages
Introduction
The Thai Rak Thai party was founded in 1998 and contested its first election in 2001, easily
winning the most seats in the House of Representatives. The coalition between the Thai Rak Thai
Corresponding author:
Siripan Nogsuan Sawasdee, Faculty of Political Science, Chulalongkorn University, Henr y Dunant Street, Patoomwan,
Bangkok, 10330, Thailand.
Email: nogsuan@gmail.com
Asian Journal of Comparative Politics
2019, Vol. 4(1) 102–119
ªThe Author(s) 2018
Article reuse guidelines:
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DOI: 10.1177/2057891118774643
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and Chart Thai parties made history by being the first elected administration to complete a four-
year term. Thai Rak Thai’s landslide victory in the 2005 general election enabled them to form the
country’s first single-party government since February 1957.
1
While the party commanded elec-
toral strength and supermajority seats in the parliament, its leader, Thaksin Shinawatra, was
accused of abusing the country’s system of checks and balances and bending government policy
to benefit his friends’ and family’s businesses.
There was growing concern among academics that Thai Rak Thai had the potential to threaten
and undermine democracy if the pa rty maintained a strong hold on Thail and’s governmental
system. Thaksin’s monopolistic style also raised fears among the social elites that the long
entrenched conservative order would be shaken and shattered. The accusations against Thai Rak
Thai included that he was authoritarian (Phongpaichit, 2004), and a single-party dictatorship
(Boonmee, 2004), among other things.
The label “Thaksin regime” denoted how powerful the Thai Rak Thai government was. The
party was compared to Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and Malaysia’s United Malays
National Organization (UMNO) (Inkawat, 2005: 27). However, in September 2006, the military
junta staged a coup to oust the Thai Rak Thai government, and Thaksin was forced into exile. A
year later the party was reincarnated as the People’s Power Party headed by Samak Sundaravej,
who publicly admitted that he was Thaksin’s nominee and easily won the 2007 election. But
Samak was found guilty of a crime and disqualified by the Constitutional Court; his crime was
hosting a cooking show on television which supposedly posed a conflict of interest as Samak, as a
state officer, obtained compensation from a private company. Soon afterwards, when Somchai
Wongsawat, Thaksin’s brother-in-law, was selected as prime minister by majority vote in the
House of Representatives, anti-government protests grew larger, and the protesters eventually
seized the Government House and airports. The People’s Power-led coalition government was
dissolved after its executive member was found guilty of vote buying. The Pheu Thai Party was the
third and latest avatar of Thaksin Shinawatra’s influence. Yingluck Shinawatra, Thaksin’s younger
sister, led the party to win the 2011 election, but it was widely understood that Thaksin controlled
Pheu Thai from abroad and its campaign was built around his image and his policies. The Pheu
Thai-led government was overthrown by a military coup d’etat in 2014.
The four consecutive electoral victories of Thai Rak Thai (2001 and 2005), People’s Power
(2007), and Pheu Thai (2011), i.e. “the TSP,” have led many people to believe that the party has
been Thailand’s dominant party. I find this perspective problematic; although the TSP was in fact a
dominant party by a minimalist standard (Bogaards, 2004; Sartori, 1976) as it won four consec-
utive elections and controlled the majority seats in the House of Representatives, it never managed
to identify with an “epoch” (Duverger, 1954: 308–309) nor to systematically improve its organiza-
tional performance and institutionalization. As a result, the TSP could not withstand the crisis
created by the alliance between the middle class and non-elected government institutions, which
were offended by the TSP’s ideas, methods, and style.
Based on that premise, this article argues that the perpetual political divide and polarization
produced by the politicization of decades-long social cleavages allowed the TPS to be electorally
dominant without having to go through the process of party building. The scattered attempts to
strengthen the party structure failed when the TSP was repeatedly dissolved, its leaders forced
out of power, and, on two occasions, its entire party executive banned from politics for five
years. The political divides led to shifting approaches in major areas of electoral competition.
The TSP’s electoral strategies transformed from a catch-all party to a party that mobilized social
cleavages. The factor that helped it achieve its victorious electoral performances in a relatively
Sawasdee 103
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