Can Pita and Shinawatra unleash Thailand's suppressed democracy?

This week the world witnessed a political earthquake in Thailand. In the country's parliamentary elections held on 14 May, the pro-democracy reformist blocks came on top while the ruling elites were defeated. 

The fact that the military and royalist blocks, who robbed the country of democracy in 2014, was on the losing side was actually not a surprise. The current Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha – also the former military chief who orchestrated the coup d'etat in 2014 – trailed in fifth position, while his former party, the Palang Pracharath, trailed in the fourth position. This was also not a surprise. 

The element of surprise in the Thai election was Pita Limjaroenrat and his Move Forward Party (MFP) who bagged 151 seats in the parliament, roughly 10 seats more than Paetongtarn Shinawatra's Pheu Thai – the party that was expected to win a landslide. 

MFP is a young player in Thailand's fraught political landscape. A successor of the Move Forward party, Pita has led MFP to the top with fewer resources than his rivals. His campaign was largely based on social media or bicycles to spread his messages across the nation. 

Even the activists rooting for Pita expected something around 100 seats. But the final result has dumbfounded the party workers as well. 

Paetongtarn Shinawatra – the daughter of ousted billionaire Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and niece of another former Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra – has extended her support and invitation to Pita to form a coalition government. 

However, the laws drafted by the military regime and Thai royals have put a condition that the Prime Minister candidate will need 376 votes across the House of Representatives and the Senate of the parliament. As the Senate is dominated by royalists and pro-military figures, Pita may need the support of Bhumjaitai – a party that bagged 70 seats campaigning on legalising marijuana. 

But even after securing the support of Bhumjaitai, it still remains to be seen if other power actors including the court would let the democratic process go on or intervene, as they did before, by disqualifying Pita on flimsy grounds. 

A long history of suppressed democracy 

Thailand has a constitutional monarchy. So does the United Kingdom and Malaysia. 

But the issue with the Thai kingdom is they explicitly intervene in politics through the military while others don't do as much. 

In the last 20 years, roughly speaking, there have been two coup d'etat; and several prime ministers were ousted by the military and royal elites. 

Paetongtarn Shinawatra's billionaire father Thaksin came to the scene in 2001 after winning the elections. He was ousted by military leaders in a bloodless coup in 2006 when he was at the UN General Assembly. Retired Surayud Chulanont was appointed interim Prime Minister. 

In 2008, the Thaksin-supported People Power Party (PPP) won the elections when Samak Sundaravej became Prime Minister facilitating Thaksin's return from exile. In 2011, the pro-Thaksin Pheu Thai party again won the election by a landslide when Yingluck – Thaksin's sister became the Prime Minister. 

But in 2014, the country's constitutional court ordered Yingluck and several of her ministers out of office over alleged irregularities in the appointment of a security adviser. The military, in the meantime, had seized the power. 

The military leader Prayuth Chan-ocha, ever since, has been ruling the country flexing with royal support. 

Meanwhile, King Bhumibol Adulyadej died in 2016 and his son widely termed a 'playboy' for his reckless lifestyle took the throne in the same year. 

Prayuth scrapped the country's existing constitution after seizing power. And in 2017, he drafted a new charter allowing the monarch emergency powers and allowing him to exercise his authority even when he is out of the country. 

This charter also allows the military to appoint a 250-member Senate that has a say in selecting the new prime minister.

And this is why, despite pro-military Palang Pracharath coming second in the 2020 elections, Prayuth was elected Prime Minister. 

The new faces of Thai politics 

Now long gone are the days of Thaksin and Yingluck Shinawatra. But the family remain as influential with new faces entering the race with reforming agendas. 

Paetongtarn Shinawatra, less than a fortnight after giving birth in earlier May, came back to campaigning and faced the music of her political destiny. 

She used to look after the hotel side of her father's business empire before joining politics. 

If her party could emerge victorious, the country could see its youngest Prime Minister in 36-year-old Paetongtarn Shinawatra, the scion of the country's most influential business and political family, battling the royal-military alliance who ousted her father and aunt from power. 

Thai voters chose her to be the second. 

But they indeed delivered a stunning verdict in favour of reformation by electing Pita first and Paetongtarn Shinawatra second who both advocate radical reform of the country's institutions. 

Unlike Paetongtarn Shinawatra's family heritage, Pita Limjaroenrat a 42-year-old man is a Harvard graduate who advocated a simple message of 'change.' His support base is young people. On his final campaign in Bangkok before the election day, he screamed at his supporter, "Our time has come." 

The voters trusted him. They also trusted in Pita's big promises to push the military back to barracks and reduce the power of the monarchs. 

Can Pita and Shinawatra unleash Thailand's suppressed democracy? 

It is difficult to say at this point if Pita and Paetongtarn Shinawatra will succeed in their promises to strengthen democratic values and hold back anti-democratic institutions. 

The first challenge for them both is to secure the 376 votes in the parliament on Pita's candidacy for the Prime Minister position defying the 250 members of the military-appointed Senate. It is important to see if the establishment, like the 2020 elections,  again stabs on the back of the people's verdict. 

But most unthinkable of all was the meteoric rise of the Move Forward Party which scaled up on top with promises to change Thailand's bureaucracy, economy and laws that protect the monarchy. That too by outdoing the Shinawatras. 

If that came true, the youths of Thailand perhaps could also believe that the change that they crave – unleashing suppressed democracy in the country – is possible. 

But most important of all is what happened in Thailand followed by Indian Congress' landslide victory in Karnataka against all mighty Modi, and on the same day when Turkish opposition parties significantly challenged their strongman Erdogan to run off – all these concurrently happening developments across Asia only gives us hope that democracy will prevail. 

That says that the autocrats, populists and unlawful usurpers' days are, eventually, numbered.