Why Thailand’s Thanathorn isn’t headed to the streets

BANGKOK – Two weeks after Thailand’s Constitutional Court dissolved the election-winning Move Forward Party for campaigning for royal reform, and Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit insists everything is going to plan for his popular progressive movement.

As the now-banned founder of Move Forward’s dissolved progenitor, Future Forward Party, Thanathorn was widely seen as the mastermind behind Move Forward’s political juggernaut and is similarly seen as the guiding hand behind the newly formed third-generation People’s Party.

Many wondered if Thanathorn and Move Forward’s leaders would galvanize their masses and take to Bangkok’s streets in protest against the court’s August 7 dissolution decision, potentially opening a new orange-garbed chapter in the kingdom’s destabilizing street politics.

On August 23, in a presentation entitled “Sustaining the Pushback against Autocratization” at Bangkok’s Thammasat University, his alma mater and a historical hotbed of student ferment, Thanathorn declared victory in defeat through his affiliated parties’ normalization of even talking about royal reform, a taboo that can land critics in prison for 15 years.

He told the audience that his movement aims ultimately for a “soft landing” for the monarchy while insisting “radical problems require radical solutions” and that his “peaceful” vision for Thailand’s transformation “might take decades” rather than years.

In an exclusive interview with Asia Times’ Southeast Asia Editor Shawn W. Crispin in a decrepit campus hut overlooking the capital’s Chao Phraya River, Thanathorn explained why now is not the time for Move Forward’s disenfranchised voters and youthful supporters to take to the streets and articulated his long-game vision for Thailand’s transformation.    

Asia Times: How will the recent court-ordered dissolution of the Move Forward party impact your progressive movement?

Thanathorn: For us, I think the administrative work in setting up a new party is huge. Before the dissolution, the party had like 100,000 members. So it’s gonna take time to go back to the same level.

But otherwise, the court verdict has united us – I think it makes us stronger. If you look at what happened to the Future Forward party after its dissolution there were like, I can’t remember exactly, 18 cobras (MPs who switched to new parties). This time there are zero cobras.

So I think the organization, the movement as a whole has solidified over the years. It’s stronger quantity-wise and quality-wise. Quantity-wise, I mean the numbers of supporters. Quality-wise, I mean the understanding of our ideologies, our ideals and ideas – people understand us more.

Asia Times: It’s happened twice now. Who exactly is dissolving your affiliated parties and why?

Thanathorn: I think the ‘why’ is clear. The why is that we are a threat to the system of too many individuals, not to any specific organizations, but to the system as a whole. So I think that’s the ‘why’ – we are a threat. The ‘who’? It’s difficult to say, I don’t really know.

Asia Times: MFP won 32 of 33 Bangkok seats at last year’s election. As the heart of economic and political power, what does that result say about closet conservative elite support for MFP?

Thanathorn: Well, I think not only in Bangkok. If you look at other provinces, many provinces, we won the party list vote even though we didn’t win many constituency MPs. That shows that many people demand change. This is a party accused of overthrowing the monarchy and yet people still voted for it. So people demand change.

It’s safe to say not only Bangkok, but yeah, of course, the sentiment of people in Bangkok is the sentiment of Thailand, right? That’s what they say. So I think when we won hugely in Bangkok, it terrifies them.

Asia Times: So with that election result, do you think it means elements of the royal establishment tacitly support your movement? That even in the royal establishment people believe in the change you’re calling for?

Thanathorn: People understand that we have no … that, that reforming the monarchy is the soft landing, the best way to go for Thailand. I think people understand that and that’s why they put their faith into us.

Asia Times: Do you think you have more support from elements that were more aligned with the previous monarch than perhaps the current?

Thanathorn: Difficult to say, difficult to quantify. But we see that many royalists who have common sense … they see the soft landing as the best way.

Asia Times: So with all the support you have in Bangkok, why hasn’t there been a popular response to the MFP dissolution decision? Why haven’t we seen anything on the streets?  

Thanathorn: Because on one hand, I think the party has planned this in advance and prepared the people mentally that the horizon is the election 2027. So now we kind of align people to that point.

So that’s why if you look at the dissolution of the Future Forward party and the dissolution of the Move Forward party they are totally different because that time we didn’t prepare the mentality of the people. So people were angry. And people were not sure if we could survive the dissolution, but we did.

And now, talking many months in advance [we prepared the people for possible dissolution]. And if it happens again, we will set up a new party and continue with the horizon of the elections in 2027. And I think we will peak, the direction will peak as a whole in 2027. So people didn’t lose faith, didn’t go to the street in protest.

Asia Times: So even if Move Forward/Future Forward does not organize the protests themselves, do you think that they could possibly happen organically like we saw in 2021 with the student protests targeting the monarchy?

Thanathorn: If in 2027 the People’s Party wins the election and cannot form the government, you know it’s gonna break.

Asia Times: But why has the party shied from overtly organizing protests against the dissolution decision for royal reasons considering the threat it is to democracy?

Thanathorn: You talk about change. I want to see a peaceful transition. It has to be peaceful, right? So unless and until we are 100% convinced that the parliamentary approach cannot bring about peaceful transition, we will continue this approach.

Asia Times: Does the lack of a response to disenfranchising a majority of voters only embolden anti-democratic forces protecting establishment interests? That as long as there is no response, they will continue to dissolve your parties. Don’t you eventually have to respond?

Thanathorn: No, because I think if you look back at what happened, we prepare for this. People prepared their minds for this. There’s anger, of course, on [dissolution] day. There was anger, there was sorrow on that day. But people know what we’re gonna do.

We communicated clearly that we will set up a new party and we will fight again at the 2027 election. So I think that’s why there’s no student protest this time around, because we communicated months earlier in advance.

Asia Times: Because the dissolution was for royal reasons, protests could target palaces or royal symbols?

Thanathorn: Potentially.

Asia Times: Is there a risk your affiliated parties are outmaneuvered by salami-slicing tactics, that little by little they finally erode support for FF/MFP/PP and its third-string generation of leaders? That the third generation may not have as much resonance and support as you and now also banned Pita Limjaroenrat?

Thanathorn: I have total faith in third-generation leadership. I think time strengthens them. For example, Tang, (Natthaphong Ruengpanyawut, the new People’s Party leader), he will be 40 at time of the 2027 election, the same age when I set up the Future Forward party.

He’s really, really bright, smart – and very firm ideologically speaking. Very firm. So that’s one of the things I’m proud of: To be able to take/bring this new generation of politicians into the spotlight.

Asia Times: Could a youth-infused Peua Thai take the mantle of Thailand’s new-generation party with Paetongtarn Shinawatra (38) as the youngest prime minister ever?

Thanathorn: No. It’s about organization structure, the way they recruit MPs is totally different from the way we recruit MPs. [For Peua Thai] you have to have family names. You have to be somebody.

But for us, show me if you are good enough to get the position. For example, [PP spokesman] Parit [Watcharasindhu], you know Parit. He’s 30 years old, and he’s the chairman of political development, commission of development.

At the age of 30, he didn’t contribute financially. He got this position because of his capability, because he’s hardworking, because he has proven himself to the people inside the party. So he gets this position.

Or Rangsiman Rome. He’s 31 and he’s the chairman of the parliamentary border issue commission. So here in this party, it’s all about your capabilities, your potential, your contribution to the party. It’s not about your family names. It’s not about how much money you chip in.

So that’s why I think organization structure is very important. We organize it this way and that allows us to be this way.

Asia Times: Imitation is the highest form of flattery: Is Peua Thai not trying to copy your model by having a youthful leader on top?

Thanathorn: It’s not about being youthful or not being youthful. I think the content is more important than the presentation. So the content – what do you offer to the people of Thailand. And is it new or not new?

It’s not about age of the leadership. It is about the content, about offering the right policies to the Thai people. What kind of Thailand do you want to build for the Thai people. And I think that defines forward thinking.

Asia Times: Some feel [Peau Thai party patron] Thaksin Shinawatra is part of the system, the oligarchs, the big business monopolies, you want to change. Is it even possible for a Shinawatra family member to affect the change, to copy your policies, considering their past, considering where they come from, considering who they are?

Thanathorn: If they wanted to do it, they would have done it by now. It’s how many months now? A year?

Asia Times: How long can you really play the long game? There was the news you bought Pridi Banomyong’s [revolutionary who overthrew the absolute monarchy in 1932] old house in France. Are you preparing for the day maybe you have to leave like Thaksin?

Thanathorn: No, no, no – that was symbolic … The future is interesting. I’m not sure how and when. But I believe change is going to come. You cannot resist the change, the views of the people when you talk to the people on the street. It’s tangible, the view of change, its very tangible.

Asia Times: And history shows the spark often comes from an unpredictable event?

Thanathorn: I think the people at the very top, they are very detached from ordinary people. They don’t understand what ordinary people are thinking. They are living in a different world. They are not responsive to the calls of the people.