Thailand’s Political Earthquake | Why Saudi Arabia Bought Pro Golf
Progressive populism, FTW
Pita Limjaroenrat, House of Representative member in Thailand Parliament, Future Forward Party. Sirakorn Lamyai - Own work
On May 14th, Thailand held general elections. The results were a shock to the Thai political system.
Since a 2014 coup, military leaders have dominated Thai politics. A mainstream opposition party has challenged military rule, but has been generally thwarted at every turn. However, this year a third party emerged victorious — and its vision for the country represents a radically progressive shift in Thai politics.
The Move Forward Party, lead by the charismatic Harvard and MIT educated 42 year-old Pita Limjaroenrat handily won the elections. And they did so by channeling a kind of progressive populism that can change Thailand's domestic political culture and foreign policy in big ways.
On the podcast today is Prashanth Parameswaran, Fellow at the Wilson Center and founder of the excellent ASEAN Wonk Substack Newsletter. We kick off discussing the political context in which Move Forward won these elections. We then have an extended conversation about how the Military Junta rigged the Thai political system in such a way that the Move Forward Party may never actually be able to form a government — and even if they did, the threat of a coup would loom large. We then discuss what this election means in terms of Thai foreign policy and geopolitical competition in Southeast Asia between the US and China.
I think you’ll like this one! You can go here to listen to it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your preferred app. And I do strongly recommend you subscribe to ASEAN Wonk. It’s a valuable resource for learning more about the politics and foreign policy in Southeast Asia.
And for our second episode this week, I speak with Politico’s National Security Reporter Alex Ward about Saudi Arabia’s purchase of the entire sport of professional golf. This can most certainly be understood as an attempt by Saudi Arabia to launder its reputation through sports—otherwise known as “Sportswashing.” Alex and I discuss this public diplomacy gambit in the context of Saudi Arabia’s politics and near term foreign policy goals.
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And of course, please email me back if you have a suggestion of a topic I should cover or person I should interview.
- Mark