Last week, Thailand’s parliament endorsed Anutin Charnvirakul as prime minister after his conservative Bhumjaithai party won a decisive victory in February’s general election, making him the first Thai premier to be voted back into office in two decades.
His coalition, which includes the populist Pheu Thai party, now controls 292 seats in the new parliament. Most pollsters had expected a much tighter race with the progressive People’s Party, the successor to Move Forward, which finished first in the 2023 election.
The result was seen as a victory for stability over change, and for nationalism over reform, after Anutin successfully turned Thailand’s ongoing border conflict with Cambodia into the defining issue of the campaign.
Aim Sinpeng, an associate professor at the University of Sydney, told DW that Anutin’s re-election is more a vote for the status quo than a conservative reaction to the country’s progressive changes.
“Voting Bhumjaithai means no major changes expected at a time where polls have shown the majority of Thais worry the most about economic insecurities and precarity,” she added.
Government faces economic challenges
High household debt, weak domestic demand, a strong baht, trade uncertaintyย and pressure on exports have sapped Thailand’s economic growth in recent years.
Economic anxiety could define Anutin’s second term. Thailand’s economy remains one of the region’s weakest performers, with official and private-sector forecasts putting 2026 growth at around 1.6% to 2%.
Among Southeast Asian countries, Vietnam is growing its GDP faster than Thailand, and Malaysia is ranked ahead in the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Index.
Bhumjaithai has said it will fix this economic malaise through a mix of consumer subsidies, cheap credit, business-friendly technocrats and promoting a “green economy.”
Its campaign platform included support for community solar projects and measures to lower household electricity bills, but critics say that is far from sufficient.
“The government’s green economy policies tend to focus narrowly on the promotion of renewable energy projects and carbon credits,” Prapimphan Chiengkul, an associate professor at Thammasat University, told DW.
“However, a truly green transition in Thailand will require much more fundamental and structural changes in all sectors, such as in sustainable agriculture, as well as investments in adaptation projects,” he added.
Geopolitics loomย in the backgroundย
Thailand is also still dealing with the fallout from last year’s border war with Cambodia, the worst fighting between the two countries in more than a decade.
The clashes killed at least 149 people and displaced hundreds of thousands before a second ceasefire was agreed in late December.
Phnom Penh has insisted on using the International Court of Justice to resolve the dispute, while Bangkok has rejected the court’s jurisdiction and says the issue should be handled bilaterally.
More immediately, Anutin’s government must also contend with the spillover from the US-Israel war with Iran.
Thailand is entirely reliant on oil and gas imports, and the Middle Eastern conflict has already led to a spike in fuel prices. Anutin’s first task will be to deal with surging inflation and the cost of living.
“In the short term, there’s zero chance of Anutin bringing about any kind of economic success, because the geopolitical landscape is shifting around him,” Mark Cogan, associate professor of Peace and Conflict Studies at Japan’s Kansai Gaidai University, told DW.
“Worst of all, Anutin has been less than reassuring. There have been calls for people to grow their own vegetables and raise chickens, a makeshift self-sufficiency strategy borrowed from another time,” he added.
A rare sign of continuity for Thai politics?
Since the end of the absolute monarchy in 1932, Thailand has repeatedly swung between elected government and military or judicial intervention. In just the past two decades, Thailand has seen two coups, repeated rounds of street protests and court rulings that have brought down five prime ministers.
Anutin has built his career on tactical flexibility. A former construction tycoon and son of a former cabinet minister, he has served as deputy prime minister, health minister, interior minister and Thailand’s COVID-19 tsar.
He was long dismissed as an adaptable broker rather than a national leader, and was best known for championing the decriminalization of cannabis in 2022.
But his real strength has been his ability to move between Thailand’s competing centers of power without making enemies of the military, the courts or the conservative-royalist establishment.
Anutin first became prime minister in September 2025 after Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra of the Pheu Thai party, was dismissed for violating ethical rules over her handling of the Cambodia dispute, which included a leaked secret phone call with former Cambodian strongman Hun Sen.
He quickly dissolved parliament to seek a stronger mandate, and his gamble worked. Campaigning amid a wave of patriotic fervor stirred by the border fighting, he cast himself as the candidate of order and stability.
The victory has underscored the decline of the once-dominant Shinawatra family, which shaped Thai politics for most of the past 25 years.
After Thaksin Shinawatra was ousted in the 2006 military coup, his sister, Yingluck, became prime minister at the next election, but she, too, was overthrown in 2014. His daughter Paetongtarn, who took the premiership in 2023, was removed by the Constitutional Court last year.
Another immediate concern for Anutin is that the Thai constitutional court accepted a petition on March 18 challenging the use of barcodes and QR codes on ballots, which critics say violates the constitutional requirement of secret voting.
The election commission has 15 days to respond, after which the constitutional court could rule February’s election void and order a fresh ballot. That’s unlikely, but it’s a reminder that political stability in Thailand is never guaranteed.
Edited by: Wesley Rahnย