In bid to lead Thailand, a progressive party softens its image

BANGKOK – The orange flags have become a fixture in Thai elections. They are the colour of a popular youth-led movement trying to make the country a true democracy.

But that goal has remained elusive for years, even though these progressives have notched upset after upset at the ballot box.

Now, they are trying to appear more tolerable to those who have blocked them from taking power – Thailand’s conservative elite, comprising the powerful military, the judiciary and the royal family.

Gone are their predecessor’s pledges to make it easier to criticise the monarchy and rein in military spending. The main message is now a pragmatic one: reviving Thailand’s stagnant economy.

Once again, the progressives, currently led by the People’s Party, were leading in the polls going into the general election on Feb 8. And once again, the question is whether they will be allowed to form a government.

“Our journey has not been easy,” Mr Ruengpanyawut, 38, leader of the People’s Party and

top contender for prime minister

, said at a rally on Feb 6.

“But no matter how many wounds we carry, when you are ‘orange’, you endure.”

Opinion polls show that the People’s Party is unlikely to secure an outright majority in the House of Representatives, forcing it to try to form an alliance with one of the two other major political parties. Such an effort is likely to face opposition within its own ranks.

One rival party is the pro-royalist Bhumjaithai Party, whose leader, Mr Anutin Charnvirakul, is the current caretaker Prime Minister.

The other is Pheu Thai,

party of the Shinawatra clan

, which once rocked Thailand’s political status quo with its populist policies but has since lost sway to the progressives. All three parties distrust one another.

While the country is a constitutional monarchy and holds regular elections, it is, in effect, beholden to an unelected elite. And recent history is particularly not reassuring for the progressive party.

Over a four-year span, the Constitutional Court dismantled the main vehicles for the progressive movement – the Future Forward Party and the Move Forward Party – after each gained popular support. It imposed long-term bans on their leadership.

In 2023, an unelected Senate, stacked with allies of the military,

blocked Mr Pita Limjaroenrat

, head of the Move Forward Party, from becoming prime minister. His party was relegated to the opposition, then banned and reincarnated as the People’s Party.

Still, Mr Pita, who returned to Thailand in January from a fellowship at Harvard University to campaign for the People’s Party, said he was more optimistic this time. That is because, he added, the Senate no longer has a role in choosing the prime minister.

“If the elites are listening, just let things be,” Mr Pita said in an interview. “A pendulum swings in democracy. It’s not a straight line that if you allow the election winner to govern, you lose everything.”

The shift in the party’s approach has incited dissent among some of its members who fear that the People’s Party could lose its identity. It also led to one high-profile member’s departure.

One reason the People’s Party is not talking about weakening Thailand’s royal defamation law, which bans criticism of its monarchy, is that the Constitutional Court has outlawed scaling it back.

Much of the party’s focus is on tackling corruption and economic stagnation through high-tech manufacturing and artificial intelligence. It has stacked its candidate list with technocrats in response to criticism that it is made up of only activists.

The People’s Party has adjusted its vocabulary, according to Mr Jirat Thongsuwan, a party member.

In 2023, Move Forward’s flagship military policy was “abolish mandatory conscription”, he noted. Now, the People’s Party has shifted the language to say it was encouraging “voluntary enlistment”.

“The party feels it must adapt to become the government,” Mr Jirat said. “We need to become the government as soon as possible, or people will get bored of politics.”

Professor Fuadi Pitsuwan, who teaches political science at Thammasat University in Bangkok and was a foreign policy adviser for Move Forward, said the focus on this election with fixing the economy had “understandably created some worry” that the People’s Party was letting go of its political ideology.

But he added that he believed it was a “stepping stone”. He recalled sitting in meetings where party leaders described their strategy with a Thai word, “khaan-ngat”, meaning “physical lever”.

“They are trying to find different leverage points to pull in order to elicit bigger change,” he added. NYTIMES