Thailand’s Royal Spell Has Been Broken

P Chachavalpongpun

On the surface, Thailand appears to be stuck in a never-ending cycle. Elections are held in which voters voice increasingly clear demands for change, only for those to be denied by the royalist old guard that has dominated my country for generations. Each of the past several elections, going back to 2005, has resulted in the winning party being denied its right to form a government or overthrown in a military coup or otherwise removed from office.

So when Thailand’s Constitutional Court last week ordered the dissolution of the country’s most popular political party — the pro-reform Move Forward Party, which won last year’s national election on a platform of curbing royal prerogatives — it seemed like the latest chapter in a normalized process of political stagnation.

But in reality what we are seeing is the beginning of the end for the Thai royalty’s once-commanding hold over its subjects, which could mean great change ahead for a traditional kingdom at the center of Southeast Asia.

The court decision is not a sign of the strength of the conservative establishment but of its weakness, a last-gasp attempt by the old guard to cling to an outdated status quo despite demands for change by millions of politically literate young Thais.

The Move Forward Party called for several reforms in the run-up to last year’s vote, including a reduction in the entrenched political power of the Thai military, the ruling establishment’s frequent enabler that has ousted elected governments in several coups over the years. But the party’s main objective was the reform of Thailand’s lèse-majesté laws. Enshrined as Article 112 of the country’s criminal code, they make it a crime to defame certain members of the royal family and are designed to protect the throne’s prerogatives. Many Thais have come to view them as an anachronistic impediment to Thailand’s development as a modern, democratic nation — and a major factor behind its persistent political instability.

Move Forward won the most seats of any party in the May 2023 elections, posing a dire threat to the crown. The conservative establishment, which is centered on the throne and the army, maneuvered to form a government that froze Move Forward out of power. Last week’s court decision was the final blow: The party, which had been accused of violating the Constitution with its call for lèse-majesté reform, was dissolved, and key members, including its leader, Pita Limjaroenrat, were barred from politics for 10 years. Thailand is essentially back where it started in 2020, when the same court dissolved Move Forward’s predecessor, the Future Forward Party, after it also achieved a strong election showing on reform demands. Thousands of Thais took to the streets of Bangkok to protest that decision.

So far, things have been calm since last week’s ruling. But these are uncomfortable times for the monarchy. In the past, we wouldn’t have even thought of questioning the royal family. When I was growing up in Bangkok in the 1980s, the cult of personality built around King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who assumed the throne in 1946, was in full bloom. Portraits of him and Queen Sirikit peered down from a wall in our home, as they did in households across Thailand. The royal image was everywhere — in public spaces, in the media, in schools and at work.

Thailand ended centuries of absolute royal rule in 1932 in favor of a constitutional monarchy, but the royal family has remained the country’s single most powerful political institution. Bhumibol accentuated this with his common touch, winning the adoration and loyalty of his subjects through more than 1,000 development projects undertaken in his name in poor rural areas. I grew up steeped in this image of a hard-working king who traveled the country to lift up the lives and spirits of Thais. I lived and breathed an unconditional love for him.

He had an authoritarian streak, too, restoring old royalist rituals such as having subjects prostrate themselves before him and elevating himself to the status of a demigod. He cultivated a relationship with the powerful military that made the crown and the generals mutually dependent while convincing the Thai people that representative politics could coexist with a powerful throne. He was looked to as a natural referee during times of political crisis, such as when his intervention led to a compromise in a violent feud between the military and pro-democracy forces in 1992. He was seen as the glue that held Thailand together.

Unfortunately, when Bhumibol died in 2016, after a more than seven-decade reign, his charisma and moral authority did not transfer to his son, King Maha Vajiralongkorn. Besides there being questions about his personal life, the current king is viewed by many Thais as aloof compared with his father, spending much of his time in Europe.

Rather than meet demands for a more accountable monarchy, Vajiralongkorn has taken direct control of the crown’s vast riches, aligned himself more closely with the military and taken command of influential military units that carried out coups against democratically elected past governments.

In 2020, thousands of people took to the streets in pro-democracy demonstrations that escalated to open criticism of the royals. Since then, the number of people charged under Article 112 has surged, leading to some of the longest sentences ever imposed.

Despite these risks, young Thais continue to reject the royal family’s exalted position. Some of their acts are as simple as no longer observing the custom of standing respectfully while the royal anthem is played in movie theaters. Some have staged hunger strikes in support of Article 112 reform. Graffiti highly insulting to Vajiralongkorn has appeared in Bangkok, and his image has been defaced in public.

These are not trivial gestures. The rejection of norms that loomed so large in daily life for generations is startling evidence of a diminishing reverence for the monarchy among a younger generation that has a new perspective on political power, legitimacy and the rule of law. The royal spell has been broken.

Move Forward’s followers are already reuniting under the new People’s Party, which is likely to gain electoral strength and, if it wins the next elections, face potential dissolution as well. But while you can dissolve political parties, you can’t dissolve their ideas.

Thailand is approaching a slow-motion collision between an electorate increasingly impatient with repeated democratic setbacks and a conservative establishment gathered around a king who won’t let go. Something has got to give.