Thailand heads to the polls on February 8 amid a prolonged period of political instability.
Since the last election some three years ago, the winning party has been dissolved and two prime ministers have been removed from office.
The snap election was called in December, with the interim Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul facing a no-confidence vote and tensions flaring along the border with Cambodia.
The upcoming election will pit Anutin’s conservative Bhumjaithai party against the anti-establishment People’s Party and the former ruling party Pheu Thai.
It is unlikely that a single party will win an outright majority, Pavin Chachavalpongpun, a professor at Kyoto University’s Center for Southeast Asian Studies, told DW.
“The 2017 constitution was engineered precisely to prevent such an outcome, favoring a fragmented parliament that necessitates coalition haggling,” he said.
Two major opinion polls, released in late January, showed the People’s Party with a clear lead and its leader, Natthaphong Ruengpanyawut, as the voters’ top choice for prime minister.
The People’s Party is the successor to the dissolved Move Forward and Future Forward parties. In the 2023 election, Move Forward won the most seats but was blocked from forming a government by a military-appointed Senate voting alongside elected lawmakers. The upper house no longer holds this power.
While the now-defunct Move Forward had promised bold changes to the military and an overhaul of a law that protects the powerful monarchy from criticism, the People’s Party has softened its stance.
“This is a move born of survivalist realpolitik, intended to shed the ‘radical’ label and avoid the judicial guillotine that claimed Move Forward,” said Pavin.
Punchada Sirivunnabood, a professor of political science at Thailand’s Mahidol University, told DW she expects the People’s Party to build on its predecessor’s success and perform even better in the February 8 election.
Even so, the faction is likely to end up without the necessary majority for a single-party government in the 500-seat assembly.
“In a best-case scenario for the People’s Party, it will win around 200 seats” under Thailand’s two-ballot electoral system, she said.
Mathis Lohatepanont, a PhD student in political science at the University of Michigan, has a similar view: “The People’s Party is leading in the polls, but polls in Thailand do not capture constituency-level dynamics.”
Out of the 500 seats available in Thailand’s House of Representatives, 100 are allocated to parties on a proportional basis, while 400 are elected in constituencies across the country under a first-past-the-post system.
“The general election will hinge on whether or not voters decide to detach local attachments from the national sentiment,” Mathis told DW.
The conservative Bhumjaithai could in fact end up as the main beneficiary of this election, given its leverage as the ruling party combined with deep local networks and defections from other parties, said Suthikarn Meechan, an assistant professor at Mahasarakham University’s College of Politics and Governance in Thailand.
Bhumjaithai “relies on the strength of its local networks,” while the People’s Party has the support of urban voters and young demographics, said Suthikarn.
“Although the latter’s support base is expanding, it remains concentrated in certain areas, making it difficult for any single party to cover both urban and rural voter bases simultaneously,” she added.
Pavin agrees that Bhumjaithai holds the strategic advantage as the party has “successfully positioned itself as the ‘Goldilocks’ choice for the establishment — pro-monarchy and pro-military, yet with a civilian, populist face.”
Anutin’s expedited rise to the top job in September 2025 followed a court order that removed then-Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra — the daughter of ex-premier Thaksin Shinawatra, who is seen as the driving force behind the Pheu Thai party.
Thaksin’s political dynasty has shaped Thai politics for more than two decades. But, after the removal of two prime ministers, the once-dominant Pheu Thai appears to be heading for one of its weakest electoral performances in decades.
A recent survey conducted by the National Institute of Development Administration projects the party in third place with roughly 17% of the vote, a steep decline from its heyday.
“The fall of the Shinawatras — culminating in Thaksin’s imprisonment and Paetongtarn’s disqualification — has ended an era of Thai politics,” said Pavin.
Paetongtarn’s leaked phone call with former Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen and the subsequent border conflict seem to have had the greatest impact on the party before the parliament was dissolved, leading to Pheu Thai “slumping considerably in the polls,” Mathis told DW.
He added that the party, which came second in the 2023 election, has only “partially recovered” since.
The border dispute with Cambodia has driven a rise in nationalist sentiment — an issue Pavin calls the “hidden hand” of this election.
He said the caretaker Bhumjaithai government has “expertly leveraged” the conflict to “manufacture a nationalist ‘rally around the flag’ effect.”
Meanwhile, Pheu Thai is championing its “Nine New Millionaires a Day” lottery-style stimulus, which “feels like a desperate attempt to reclaim its populist throne, but it lacks the structural weight of their past successes,” according to Pavin.
However, Suthikarn warned that the Shinawatra-backed group still holds “significant” potential that “should not be overlooked,” considering the party’s campaigning in several northeastern provinces.
“The fact that polls tend to underestimate Pheu Thai is, in a positive light, prompting the party to adjust its strategies and work harder than in the previous election,” she added.
In addition to electing a new parliament on Sunday, Thai voters are also set to decide take part in a constitutional referendum and decide if the current military‑backed 2017 charter needs to be replaced.
The ballot will simply ask voters if they “approve that there should be a new constitution,” with options of “Yes,” “No,” or “No opinion.”
The referendum is not an immediate vote on a new constitution. A majority “Yes” vote would give parliament a public mandate to start a multi‑stage drafting process that would require two more referendums before a new charter could be adopted.
Suthikarn stressed drafting a new constitution remains a “critical necessity” for Thailand.
She said a constitution is not “merely a legal framework,” but rather the fundamental structure that defines the distribution of power, power relations, and the balance of power between various political institutions, both formally and informally.
“Without a total rewrite — one that removes the military’s hand from the Senate and restores the principle of ‘people’s sovereignty’ — Thailand will remain trapped in a cycle of short-lived governments and judicial coups,” Pavin said.
