DYER: Those with clout will put down populist measures

House of Representatives.

The popular response to that was a huge wave of student-led protests in 2020, which for the first time even criticized the politicized role of the King, hitherto a sacrosanct figure. Those mass protests were crushed by an equally massive wave of arrests, but it was clear that the activist youth of the country were fed up with the old games.

So now comes Paetongtarn Shinawatra, Thaksin’s 36-year-old daughter (popularly known as Ung Ing). She now leads his old party, Pheu Thai, and has been campaigning hard despite being more than eight months pregnant. The latest opinion polls give Pheu Thai 47.2 per cent of the votes, followed by the Move Forward Party with 21.2 per cent.

Move Forward is another reform-oriented party that is winning over a lot of first-time voters. Together with Pheu Thai they might take 70 per cent of the 500 seats in the House of Representatives, almost enough to outweigh the 250 military seats in the appointed Senate. Make a coalition with some third party in the House, and you have a reformist government.

But here’s the problem:

Pheu Thai’s campaign promises are virtually unchanged since Thaksin Shinawatra’s policies of 22 years ago. It’s offering a 10,000 baht ($300) digital payout for every Thai aged 16 and older. It will raise the minimum wage by 60 per cent. It will triple farmers’ incomes by 2027. It will create 20 million high-paying jobs.

All the old populist promises, in other words, and practically guaranteed to elicit the same old reactions. Maybe this election will produce a radical break with the past, but it could also be just the start of the next trip round the circuit.