The new Thai Senate: Less powerful and less predictable
The new Thai Senate:
Less powerful and less predictable
WRITTEN BY MATHIS LOHATEPANONT
25 July 2024
For the first time since Thailand officially returned to democratic rule after the 2014 military coup, the country has chosen a new Senate after the previous upper house’s five-year term expired. However, a uniquely complicated process for the selection of new senators and constitutional changes ensures that this Senate will be both less powerful but also less predictable than the previous one.
The previous Senate had been fully appointed by the military junta that ruled Thailand from 2014 to 2019, and it wielded outsized influence over Thai politics. This was due to a temporary provision of the 2017 constitution, which had granted the upper house the power to join with the lower house — traditionally a prerogative of the latter alone — to select the prime minister. Given how the Senate had been appointed, it was no surprise that the body became a crucial firewall for blocking prime ministerial nominees hostile to conservative interests. After the 2019 general election, the Senate voted en masse for coup leader General Prayut Chan-o-cha. In 2023, only thirteen out of two hundred senators voted in favour of progressive candidate Pita Limjaroenrat, a candidate that conservatives found unacceptable due to his party’s support for reform of Thailand’s lèse-majesté law. Both instances ensured that the party that had won the most seats in both elections would be unable to form a government.
This power has now expired, just as Thailand’s political landscape has shifted dramatically over the past year. Prayut left office after the 2023 general election and was replaced by a coalition led by former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra’s Pheu Thai Party. Under the sway of conservative leaders, the previous Senate had supported Pheu Thai and the conservative parties’ grand compromise, thus blocking the opposition Move Forward Party from power. The new Senate will not be able to play kingmaker in the way its predecessor did but instead will be limited to its more customary functions, primarily reviewing legislation — and its concerns can still be overridden by the House of Representatives.
The new senators are largely unknown to the public; their individual preferences can only be gleaned with time, and so how they will behave is largely still a matter of speculation.
However, the Senate still possesses some crucial powers. It appoints judges to the Constitutional Court — Thailand’s most powerful judicial body — as well as members of various independent agencies, including the National Anti-Corruption Commission and the State Audit Commission. The Senate also remains a key veto player in the process of constitutional reform. At least 67 senators will have to consent for any bill involving revision of the constitution to pass, a potential stumbling block for the Pheu Thai government that has made rewriting the 2017 constitution a priority.
An upper house that pleases few
The Thai Senate has undergone substantial evolution with every new iteration of Thailand’s constitution. For most of the 20th century, the Senate — when it existed — was fully appointed. In 1997, following the passage of Thailand’s most democratic constitution yet, the Senate for the first time became a wholly democratically elected body. The elected Senate, however, soon faced accusations of becoming another home for corrupt and venal politicians, with some calling it part of a “husband-wife” parliament (ostensibly because members of parliament in the House of Representatives often pushed for their relatives to be elected to the upper house). By the time the 2017 constitution was promulgated, the post-coup Senate was transformed back into a fully appointed body. However, the power granted to the coup-makers to appoint a Senate was also temporary. Every new Senate class afterwards would be selected through an innovative new process.
Although well-meaning and seeking to create a Senate that would appear more democratic but could still be insulated from political pressures, they created what has now been called the world’s most complicated election system. It involves a byzantine process in which self-nominated candidates drawn from various professional groups select amongst themselves at the district, provincial, and national levels. The process is hardly insulated from politics, with accusations of political groups placing candidates to collude and vote for each other as blocs. It produces perverse incentives as candidates are rumoured to vote for those with weaker profiles in the hopes that it would eliminate high-profile individuals and allow themselves to make the cut.
This self-selection system ended up producing an upper house where most individuals are hardly recognisable to the public and would likely not have been elected in a fully democratic system while lacking the credentials and qualifications of the previously appointed senators. Reports that the top vote-earner incredulously claimed to simultaneously be a doctor, a PhD holder in political science, and a professor in business administration drew intense scrutiny — and later mockery when it was discovered that her claimed doctorate was merely from a credential evaluation institute in California.
Neither those who wished for a democratic upper house that represents the popular aspirations of the people, nor those who desired a senate of the great and good that could act as a brake on the populist tempers of the lower house, would be satisfied by these results.
A “dark blue” Senate?
One narrow political grouping, however, is likely to be pleased with the new Senate. Thai media immediately reported that many of the new Senators appeared to be linked to the Bhumjaithai Party, the second-largest party in the government coalition. One reported that as many as 123 of the 200 new Senators were “dark blue” candidates — dark blue being the Bhumjaithai party colour. Although it is difficult to independently verify these numbers, given that many of the new senators are not well known to the public, the fact that many of the senators hail from Bhumjaithai provincial strongholds is suggestive. Meanwhile, other political groups appear to have fared much worse. High-profile candidates linked to the Phe Thai Party, including those formerly viewed as shoo-ins such as former Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat and former acting prime minister Niwatthamrong Boonsongpaisan, did not make the cut. Thai media reported that as few as 12 “red” senators (linked to Pheu Thai) and 18 “orange” senators (linked to the Move Forward Party) were elected. (That number may have been underestimated, however; 33 senators have now self-proclaimed themselves as a progressive “new breed”.)
If it is true that the new Senate is now “dark blue”, what does that mean for Thailand’s political landscape? This is a difficult question to answer because the Bhumjaithai Party has not always been ideologically consistent. It is steadfastly royalist and conservative — ensuring that constitutional amendments too threatening to conservative interests are unlikely to pass — but in other areas, the party’s image has often been ambiguous. It was founded as an offshoot of Thaksin Shinawatra’s Thai Rak Thai Party but joined both the anti-Thaksin Abhisit Vejjajiva and Prayut Chan-o-cha coalitions. It is linked to a local godfather, Newin Chidchob, who holds sway over Buriram province, and is known for its mastery of local politics via allied political clans. At the national level, the party is best known for its support for legalising medical marijuana. This is not a profile that necessarily points to a clear picture of how its senators will seek to use their power.
What is clear at this stage is that the new Senate is unlikely to be as predictable as its predecessor. Its key dark blue faction may prove to be friendly or hostile to the Pheu Thai-led government depending on the circumstances. At the very least, it is likely to provide Bhumjaithai with greater bargaining power as it negotiates with Pheu Thai and other coalition partners on its policy priorities. At the same time, the Senate has become more pluralistic, with more voices from varied groups that may come into conflict more easily. The new senators are largely unknown to the public; their individual preferences can only be gleaned with time, and so how they will behave is largely still a matter of speculation.
Regardless of its makeup, the fact that this Senate has no say in who becomes the prime minister may have unpredictable effects on whether or not the grand compromise between the Pheu Thai Party and its coalition will hold. Without the power to block the will of the House of Representatives, there are now few parliamentary roadblocks to the Pheu Thai Party jettisoning the coalition agreement with the conservatives and forging a new alliance with Move Forward, for example. Although a scenario unlikely to happen in the near future, that threat alone may give Pheu Thai a strengthened hand within the coalition — and also give conservatives a motivation to find extra-parliamentary methods of keeping Pheu Thai in check.
DISCLAIMER: All views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent that of the 9DASHLINE.com platform.
Author biography
Mathis Lohatepanont is a PhD candidate in the Department of Political Science at the University of Michigan. Image credit: Wikimedia Commons/IIIIXXIIXI.