Just days after Thai F-16s carried out air strikes on neighboring Cambodia, Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul has dissolved his country’s parliament. That shows a decree that he made public on Thursday. In a Facebook message he writes: “I want to give power back to the people.” “Because the political situation is full of challenges, the government can no longer provide continuous, efficient and stable governance,” Anutin said.
It has been in the air for some time that Thais would go to the polls again. The Prime Minister is under pressure for his poor handling of the mid-November floods. Coalition party Pheu Thai wanted to table a motion of no confidence against the prime minister, the leader of the Bumjaithai party. Prime Minister Anutin is ahead of this step by dissolving parliament (which resides in the world’s largest parliament building).
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The timing of his announcement cannot be separated from the ever-escalating border conflict between Thailand and Cambodia. In addition to Monday’s air raids, there is also daily fighting on the ground. At least twenty people were killed by Thursday, reports the AP news agency. Hundreds of thousands of citizens on both sides of the border have had to leave their homes due to the violence.
The war could fuel nationalism and strengthen the prime minister’s popularity, it concluded NRCcorrespondent Saskia Konniger earlier this week. Anutin also has a lot of power and connections in the Ministry of Interior and in the Thai Election Commission.
Gregory Raymond, a lecturer in strategic and defense studies at the Australian National University, contradicts this Channel News Asia of a ‘khaki election’. That term, a reference to the color of British uniforms during the Boer War, refers to the determining influence that war can have on voting behavior. “We are seeing an increase in ultra-nationalist sentiments among the Thai population,” says Raymond.
The reformist opposition People’s Party hopes to get 60 percent of the votes in the elections. In mid-November, a Thai activist, Patsaravalee Tanakitvibulpon, told NRC that the People’s Party underestimates the prime minister. “Anutin has the support of the majority of the Senate. He was Minister of the Interior, he knows the right people. In a new election, he has countless ways to get the votes his way. Through influence. Through fraud.”
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