Thailand’s upcoming February 8th general election is seeing a sudden shift in rural voter preference. Rubber farmer Pinittaya Boonlieng sat with friends in a key political battleground in Thailand to discuss candidates.
Thaksin’s populist Pheu Thai party has had a grip on agrarian provinces like Ubon Ratchathani in northeastern Thailand for decades, however, in recent years, that grip has weakened considerably, and voters are switching alliances to other powerful individual candidates.
Loss Of Confidence In The Pheu Thai Administration
Peu Thai was originally polling at 30.1% in these provinces, only slightly behind the national frontrunner—the reformist People’s Party, according to a survey conducted by the University of Khon Kaen in January.
The previous election in 2023 saw Pheu Thai winning 73 out of the 133 direct constituency seats available across 10 provinces in northeast Thailand. This region houses 4 million of the country’s 8.6 million registered farmers.
While many of the Pheu Thai candidates from the 2023 election remain popular, a few have switched parties after the removal of Thaksin’s daughter—Paetongtarn Shinawatra—as premier last year due to her botched handling of border tensions with Cambodia.
The border skirmish turned into one of the worst fights between the two neighbours in decades, killing at least 149 people and garnering public outrage in Thailand over Thaksin’s previously close ties with Cambodia’s former leader Hun Sen.
Local Candidates Over Loyalty To Party
Pinittaya, the rubber farmer, has decided to support the ruling Bhumjaithai Party, not because of ideology or policy, but because she favours the local candidate, a former Pheu Thai lawmaker who defected.
However, many rural voters have decided to remain loyal to Pheu Thai mostly because of their local candidates. Cherdsak Phokkunlanon, a Pheu Thai candidate, believes that the party can retain and even expand its rural voter base with populist policies, a strategy the party has successfully employed before.
Pheu Thai’s Members Switch Parties
Rival political parties have seen this swing sentiment as an opportunity, and are aggressively swooping up well-liked local figures rather than relaying to larger national campaigns.
Across the nation, at least 91 lawmakers elected in 2023 have switched their political affiliation ahead of the February polls, according to multiple local media sources.
Titipol Phakdeewanich, a political scientist at Ubon Ratchthani University, believes that the trend reflects the enduring power of patronage politics in the Thai hinterland, rooted in gaps in state welfare schemes and public service delivery.
(With inputs from Reuters)
