Asian Insider: A tale of two Indochina elections – same, same but different?

Assistant Foreign Editor

Updated

Published

Dec 17, 2025, 03:50 PM

The year 2026 will kick off with not just one, but two elections in Southeast Asia. Only the most chronic optimists, though, would expect any real breakthroughs in Myanmar and Thailand.

The election that Myanmar’s ruling junta has long promised will start Dec 28 and stretch into most of January, while neighbouring Thailand will hold its own on Feb 8.

Myanmar’s election has been derided by many within and outside the country as a sham. The military-led government’s win is effectively guaranteed with thousands of resistance fighters and politicians still imprisoned as the country remains engulfed in an ongoing civil war with numerous ethnic armed groups and the People’s Defence Force going against the junta, which seized power almost five years ago.

Although Thailand’s military is no longer ruling the country, the Land of Smiles has been embroiled in two decades of political upheaval, military coups and short-term compromises that have inhibited Thailand from reaching its economic potential.

Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul has only been in power for barely three months. His predecessor Paetongtarn Shinawatra was ousted over her handling of the previous round of border tensions with Cambodia. Ms Shinawatra only took over as Prime Minister after her predecessor and Pheu Thai Party colleague Srettha Thavisin was removed from office by the Constitutional Court over an ethics violation.

Also, consider this: Pheu Thai had come into power after the progressive Move Forward Party was blocked from forming the government by the military-appointed Senate despite its success at the 2023 election. Move Forward had campaigned on an ambitious structural reform agenda targeting the country’s monarchy, monopolies and military, so there was little surprise when the party was later dissolved by the Constitutional Court. It would be deja vu if any iteration of Move Forward, which was itself the de facto successor of Future Forward Party, would emerge victorious in February and be blocked from forming the government again.

Viewed cynically, Mr Anutin’s recent resumption of hostilities with Cambodia shortly before he dissolved Parliament may be seen as a ploy to fan nationalism to boost his Bhumjaithai Party’s (BJT) chances at the next election, which he had to call by early 2026. As my colleagues Philip Wen and May Wong pointed out, this crisis is helping Mr Anutin gain footing among conservative, nationalistic quarters – and this is helping him reshape the prevailing political narrative.

It remains to be seen if that would help Mr Anutin and his party overcome unhappiness from the mishandling of the floods in southern Thailand and allegations tying him to industrial scam networks.

Philip and May have been reporting from both sides of the Thai-Cambodian border. Philip was at Buriram’s international-grade motorsport racetrack, which was turned into a temporary refuge for Thai residents fleeing the conflict. May documented the plight of desperate Cambodian mothers, found locals having to flee again and again and assessed the impact of the conflict on Siem Reap tourism.

This year is ending on a rather grim note after the tragic tower fires in Hong Kong, floods in many parts of Asia, a terrorist attack in Sydney that is reverberating throughout the world and a Thai-Cambodia conflict that has escalated beyond anything in recent memory.

This is the last edition of the Asian Insider newsletter in 2025, but we will continue to bring you coverage of all that is brewing in the region and beyond. See you again in a few weeks.