Anutins landslide shifts Thailand decisively to the right

BANGKOK – Thailand’s snap elections delivered a decisive rightward turn on Sunday, with the conservative Bhumjaithai Party securing a sweep while upending the progressive People’s Party, whose predecessor won on an anti-establishment ticket in 2023.

Bhumjaithai won an estimated 194 seats in the 500-seat parliament, followed by the People’s Party with 108, Pheu Thai with 78, Kla Tham with 58, and the Democrats with 20, according to preliminary Election Commission results with over 85% of the vote counted.

Bhumjaithai, a royalist party with rough-and-tumble provincial roots, will need at least one—and possibly two—of the top-placing parties to secure a majority and form a stable government of 270-plus seats, resistant to defections and other well-worn forms of parliamentary skulduggery.

Based on those still-preliminary results, analysts already see a Bhumjaithai–Peua Thai–Kla Tham coalition as the most likely formation, with all three parties posturing as pro-establishment while rooted deeply in provincial patronage networks.

The People’s Party said before the vote that it would move into opposition if Bhumjaithai won, while the Democrats, who expected far more than their roughly 20 seats, ruled out joining any coalition that included rival Kla Tham, which exceeded projections by winning seats nationwide despite being led by a convicted heroin smuggler.

The election result reflects, at least in part, a surge in nationalist sentiment sparked by Thailand’s border conflict with Cambodia, with Bhumjaithai leader Anutin Charnvirakul effectively draping himself in the flag as a wartime leader during his brief stint as prime minister last year and caretaker until now.

That shift in national mood undercut the People’s Party’s winning 2023 reform message, centered on checking and curbing establishment power in the monarchy, military and big-business monopolies after nearly a decade of direct and de facto soldier rule.

The progressive party’s decision to blunt that message — partly to ensure its survival, partly in response to the national mood shift —faltered under less charismatic leadership than in 2023, leaving it looking adrift as it rolled out awkward populist proposals such as an “SME lottery.”

Bhumjaithai’s success also owes to Anutin’s long, hard drive to forge alliances with provincial political clans, known in Thai as bahn yai, or “big houses”, a strategy that allowed his party, once confined largely to the northeast, to expand its power and influence nationwide, largely at the expense of Peua Thai’s one-time juggernaut.

Anutin, the scion of one of Thailand’s largest construction companies, is likely to prioritize big-ticket infrastructure projects over deep structural reform to spur growth in one of Southeast Asia’s weakest-performing economies, which grew just 2% in 2025 and has fallen out of foreign investor favor.

Bhumjaithai also campaigned successfully on a khon la kreung policy, literally “half each”, a consumer subsidy scheme first launched by former military Prime Minister Prayut Chan-ocha during the Covid crisis, under which the government foots half the bill for capped small purchases. The party is also renowned for unleashing the kingdom’s free-for-all marijuana policy.

At the same time, if the coalition forms as widely projected, an Anutin-led government is likely to face intense opposition – and perhaps international, including US Treasury – scrutiny of its constituent parties’ alleged links to “gray capital,” a term in Thailand referring to illicit proceeds from online scam centers run by Chinese crime gangs in Myanmar, Cambodia and Thailand itself.

Bhumjaithai, Peua Thai and Kla Tham all face unproven but insufficiently debunked allegations involving links, transactions and photographs with Ben Mauerberger, aka Ben Smith, who is accused of laundering funds from Cambodia scam centers through Thailand. (Mauerberger denies the allegations.)

The Democrats and People’s Party campaigned hard on the issue, asserting that their candidates offered a comparatively clean government alternative, a message that ultimately failed to resonate with many voters.

Anutin dissolved parliament last December ahead of a no-confidence debate that promised to drill down on the issue, and declined to participate in any campaign trail debates that could have put the sometimes less-than-eloquent politician on the spot. His deputy finance minister, Vorapak Tanyawong, was forced to resign on alleged illegal dealings with Mauerberger.

On the campaign trail, Democrat deputy leader and ex-finance minister Korn Chatikavanij warned of “state capture” by foreign scamsters and said Thailand could become a “failed state” within two years without new national leadership. Two People’s Party candidates fell on gray capital charges ahead of the vote.

Markets will nonetheless be somewhat assured and may initially bounce on the weight of Anutin’s cast of respected technocrats expected to run economic-oriented ministries, namely finance, commerce, energy and foreign affairs. Bhumjaithai’s decisive win means it will likely command the key portfolios.

Ekniti Nitithanprapas, a former director general of the Thai Treasury Department, is expected to be reappointed as finance minister under an Anutin 2.0 coalition government, while the respected Sihasak Phuangketkeow, who ran as Bhumjaithai’s other prime ministerial candidate, is likely to resume his role as the kingdom’s top diplomat.

It was widely assumed that Anutin’s earlier decision to appoint prominent conservative technocrats, who at the time had no clear links to his party, was favored, if not engineered, by the royal establishment.

Some observers saw it as a post-coup-style lineup of proven palace loyalists after the Cambodia conflict-driven collapse of Paethongtarn Shinawatra’s bumbling and ultimately explosive one-year rule.

Peua Thai will nonetheless be compelled to join arch-rival Bhumjaithai in a coalition, wary that any outreach to the People’s Party could trigger an establishment backlash, including the possible rejection of jailed party patron Thaksin Shinawatra’s parole in May.

While Anutin’s government may have to contend with persistent gray capital allegations, it is likely to enjoy secure and favorable relations with the royal palace, given Anutin’s known long-standing personal ties to King Vajiralongkorn.

Anutin was pictured bowing before Vajiralongkorn at a ceremony a day before Sunday’s election, an image widely circulated on social media and interpreted by many Thais as tacit royal approval of his potential leadership.

Where a People’s Party victory and government would likely have triggered concerns of instability, an Anutin-led coalition won’t face the same sort of dissolution and ouster threats that might have buffeted the kingdom had voters opted for progressive change over the conservative status quo.