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For superstitious Thais, a lot of factors go into determining fortunes — hence why expert astrologers are needed to help everything from names to founding times. For the newly formed People’s Party (PP), successor to the Move Forward Party, some may start wondering whether now is the time to question if the spiritual consultants had gotten something wrong. Not much has gone right for the party since its formation back in August.
First, the party had lost multiple local races back in September. Then, on Sunday, elections for chairman of the Provincial Administrative Organization (PAO) were held in three provinces: Udon Thani, Petchaburi, and Nakhon Si Thammarat. The People’s Party (PP) dealt another heavy defeat in their quest to win the race in Udon Thani. (For those unfamiliar with Thailand’s byzantine system for local governance, each province has two top officials in parallel roles: one elected and one appointed. While the provincial governor is selected by the Ministry of Interior, the PAO Chairman is elected by voters.)
On one hand, the party’s defeat in Udon Thani should not be a surprise. Udon Thani is considered a key capital city of the Thaksin Shinawatra-supporting red shirt movement. There had been some warning signs for the Pheu Thai Party in the 2023 election, when the party, which previously won all the seats province-wide, lost a few to now defunct Move Forward and the Thai Sang Thai Party. But Pheu Thai had still won a solid 41 percent of the vote in 2023 and 7 out of 10 parliamentary seats.
Pheu Thai chose not to take any chances, of course. In a mistakable sign of the importance the party was placing in re-affirming its dominance in its strongholds, the party sent Thaksin himself for his first campaign rally appearance since his return to Thailand last year. To his diehard fans, there could no better spokesperson for Pheu Thai than its true leader itself.
Except Thaksin did make one strategic mistake during his appearances in Udon Thani. Thaksin began directly attacking the People’s Party and its spiritual leaders such as Thanathorn Juangroongrueangkit, reminiscing of how their two parties could not work together to form a government and warning Thanathorn against trying to pursue “too much structural change.”
This gave Thanathorn an opportunity to fire back directly at Thaksin — something that the PP had been notably reticent to do — declaring that “instead of cooperating to solve problems, Thaksin has chosen to become part of the problem.”
As the columnist Sorakun Adunyanon (better known by his pen name Noom Muang Chan) wrote the day before the election, by touching these polarizing issues, the PP were able to do what they do best: generate media interest and national buzz. “At the very least,” Sorakun wrote, “the PP will not lose in a landslide like some have been predicting.”
Perhaps the results do bear this forecast out. The PP candidate did gain a lot of votes from the last time the Udon Thani PAO election was held in 2020 — from 185,801 votes four years ago to 268,675 this time around. But that was not nearly enough to come into striking distance of Pheu Thai, which led with 327,487 votes. Importantly, Pheu Thai were able to beat the PP in the urban areas, which should have been demographically friendlier to the latter.
So overall, there is still a disappointing set of results, and it marks a long-running losing streak for the progressives, who in their various iterations have been unable to win a single PAO seat yet.
Of course, I would not extrapolate from local elections to the national sentiment so easily: the PP suffers from various structural disadvantages that it would not face in a national election, such as a lack of early voting and its inability to tap into clientelist networks. And it’s always worth recalling that after the Progressive Movement faltered in 2020, winning precisely zero PAO seats, Move Forward proceeded to win the 2023 election.
But the PP might take one of Thaksin’s warnings to heart: he had noted during his rally speech that the PP were still using images of the now-banned Pita Limjaroenrat in their election banners, instead of just the current leader Nattapong Rueangpanyawut.
Meanwhile, Pheu Thai could rely just on Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra (after all, everyone knows she is her father’s avatar, even as he incredulously tried to deny having influence over her).
That Nattapong is a liability for the PP is becoming easy to see. Since the change in the public facing-leaders of both the Pheu Thai government and the opposition, the polling has shifted; Paetongtarn topped NIDA’s September poll and came ahead of Nattapong, something former prime minister Srettha Thavisin was never able to beat Pita in.
Of course, one could argue that it is far too early. But one also wonders whether Nattapong’s more geeky personality is well-suited for winning over the Thai electorate, and for the PP a change could be worth pondering.
Of lesser national significance was the PAO race in Nakhon Si Thammarat, which had been won by Warin Chinnawong. Media reports suggest that Warin had been backed by Bhumjai Thai, especially Labour Minister Phiphat Ratchakitprakan, along with elements of the Ruam Thai Saang Chart (United Thai Nation) party and Palang Pracharath parties. She defeated the former PAO chair Kanokporn Dechdecho, mother of Chaichana Dechdecho, deputy leader of the Democrat Party.
Although neither had run with their official labels, the defeat of a close relative of such a prominent Democrat Party figure may raise further consternation in the Democrat Party. The party had been in deep decline nationally but in 2024 managed to cling on to some of their Southern stronghold. Losing the South would spell extinction for the party, of course.
More races for PAO offices will be held next year. Both the PP and the Democrats will have some deep reflection to do before then.