By the time it takes place after evident foot-dragging by relevant authorities, the next election in Thailand will be unlike its precursors. There will be new parties with new policy ideas, new vote-gathering technologies and first-time voters who came of age during Thailand's political tension and polarisation more or less over the past two decades. At issue during the next poll is whether and to what extent Thailand's entrenched and endemic patronage-driven and vote-buying political system has really changed. The evidence is mixed but it is plausible that a new kind of politics will emerge not directly in the next poll but in the 2020s.
To be sure, signs and signals of the old political system are rife. Of all the politicians who have been in the news, very few are new. We keep hearing from tired old names and faces from the established political parties, namely Pheu Thai and the Democrats, who just won't go away after being part and parcel of the political crisis and prolonged malaise that has beset Thailand. In the provinces outside Bangkok, from the populous north and northeast to the southern and central regions, the ruling families and local patrons still hold sway.
Thitinan Pongsudhirak teaches at the Faculty of Political Science and directs the Institute of Security and International Studies at Chulalongkorn University.
