In recent weeks, Thai politics has been consumed by the debate over the Pheu Thai-led coalition government’s signature policy to create the country’s first “Entertainment Complex,” with Bangkok, Chonburi, Chiang Mai and Phuket earmarked as possible locations. The controversy concerns the centerpiece of the Complex: the country’s first legal casino. Thailand remains a socially conservative country which, despite the existence of widespread underground gambling, generally regards gambling as a vice. But more importantly, there are widespread concerns over the transparency of the project and the unseemly haste with which the government is moving to implement it.
Former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, the father of the current prime minister, Paetongtarn Shinawatra, and the author of the policy, has argued that the Complex will help stimulate the economy and bring gambling out of the shadows where it can be regulated and taxed. He has been aggressively pushing the megaproject. At one government meeting, it was reported that he threatened to expel any party in the coalition that did not support the controversial proposal.
Last month, Bhumjaithai Party MP Chaichanok Chidchob surprised the Parliament by announcing that as the “eldest son of Newin Chidchob” and Secretary General of the party, he would “never” support the casino project. Bhumjaithai is the second largest party in Pheu Thai’s coalition, and Newin is the party’s founder and powerbroker.
The MP’s comments have been interpreted as a rebuke of Thaksin, whose influence has loomed over Thailand’s politics for the last quarter of a century. Bhumjaithai’s apparent withdrawal of support for the project places the future of the coalition government in question.
Since taking office in 2023, the Pheu Thai-led government has been widely seen as ineffective. Despite Thaksin’s famed economic know-how, the government hardly has a single achievement to point to. Paetongtarn is seen as unqualified, aloof, and essentially a mouthpiece for her father. She recently survived a withering no-confidence debate despite her lackluster performance.
To understand the current predicament of Paetongtarn’s government, we must recall how and why it came to power.
The coalition government was formed as a result of what Thai observers have called a “devil’s deal.” Thaksin, in exile since 2008, agreed to allow his Pheu Thai Party to go into coalition with his erstwhile enemies, the military parties, Palang Pracharath and the United Thai Nation Party, and another conservative party, Bhumjaithai. The objective was to block the progressive Move Forward Party (MFP), which won the most seats in the 2023 election, from forming the government. In return, Thaksin would be allowed to return home and avoid imprisonment on the corruption and abuse of power charges that prompted his self-exile. His sister, former Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, also in exile since she was ousted in a coup in 2014, would follow him home at a later date. Conservatives hoped that a strong, effective conservative coalition government would sap the support of the MFP.
Conservatives regarded the MFP as an existential threat to the monarchy. When the first incarnation of the party, Future Forward, was dissolved in 2020, it sparked unprecedented student protests calling for fundamental reforms, including of the monarchy. In August 2024, its successor was also dissolved by the Constitutional Court and many of its leading politicians banned after campaigning to reform the country’s controversial lese-majeste law, which forbids criticism of the monarchy. The party’s new incarnation, the People’s Party, founded immediately after the MFP’s dissolution, is popular among the young, and especially urban middle class voters. It is likely to be competitive at the next election.
Despite allowing him to return from exile and form government yet again, Thailand’s conservative establishment has never trusted Thaksin, and he has been kept on a tight leash. Recently, the People’s Party MP Chayaphol Sathondee revealed in parliament a secret list of alleged anti-monarchy figures that the Armed Forces’ “Information Operations” unit has been monitoring. The list included the names of Thaksin and Paetongtarn. In March, the Criminal Court rejected Thaksin’s request to leave the country to attend an ASEAN meeting in Indonesia. Thaksin is still due to face lese-majeste and computer crimes charges over comments he made back in 2015. He has also been summoned by the Supreme Court to face questioning in another case relating to whether he properly served his one-year prison sentence in 2023. And his sister Yingluck remains in exile, with seemingly no progress made on her return.
Since the formation of the coalition, Bhumjaithai has played second fiddle to Pheu Thai. But the government’s faltering performance and Thaksin’s travails may have emboldened Bhumjaithai to use the casino issue to challenge Thaksin’s authority over the government.
Bhumjaithai has long been the dark horse of Thai politics. The party’s founder, Newin Chidchob, was a former member of Thaksin’s successful Thai Rak Thai party of the early 2000s. In 2008, he broke away from Thaksin to form Bhumjaithai. He is regarded as one of the shrewdest politicians in the country. The party is led by former construction tycoon, Anutin Charnvirakul, who is deputy prime minister in the current government and heads the key Ministry of the Interior. Anutin has quietly bided his time and is playing the role of conciliator, but he is known to be politically ambitious. He has good relations with the conservative establishment (though his name also appeared on the Armed Forces’ secret list). Late last month, the prime minister appointed Anutin “honorary minister representing the government” to accompany King Vajiralongkorn and the Queen on their state visit to Bhutan, an honor that could only have been conferred with the consent of the Palace.
Bhumjaithai also has a secret weapon. It controls the largest bloc of seats in the Senate: 123 out of the 200 members. Besides approving legislation, the Senate appoints members of the so-called “independent organizations,” including the Constitutional Court, the Electoral Commission, and the National Anti-Corruption Commission. In recent years, these extra-parliamentary organizations have become conservative strongholds with broad powers over the political process, as the Constitutional Court’s dissolution of the MFP last year shows. This gives Bhumjaithai considerable political leverage beyond the 71 seats it holds in the lower house.
Thaksin would not normally allow this recent humiliation to go unanswered, but his options are limited. He could direct Prime Minister Paetongtarn to expel Bhumjaithai from the coalition and govern with a slim majority, but the Pheu Thai Party would then be even more subject to the whims of the smaller conservative parties. Paetongtarn could dissolve parliament and call new elections, hoping to receive a fresh mandate, but the Pheu Thai-led government has few achievements that it can point to. It is possible that the coalition could limp on, with Bhumjaithai increasingly calling the shots, but Paetongtarn and Pheu Thai (and Thaksin) facing the brunt of public criticism and therefore bleeding support. Or, Bhumjaithai might feel that the time is ripe to take control of the coalition by forcing the unpopular Paetongtarn to step down and replacing her with Anutin.
With the future of the coalition government seemingly in question, Bhumjaithai is now flexing its muscles. In 2008, as the conservatives moved to destroy Thaksin’s second party, the “People’s Power Party,” Newin famously told Thaksin, “It’s over, Boss.” While Thai politics is notoriously opaque and unpredictable, history may be about to repeat itself.