Bhumjaithai's First Year in Power with Ken Lohatepanont

SPEAKER_1 (0:03)

Welcome back to Southeast Asia Radio. Today is Thursday, October 8th. On today's episode, Greg and Elina were joined by Ken Lohatepanont to discuss the latest in Thai domestic politics after Bhumjaithai's first year in power.

Greg Poling (0:20)

Welcome back everybody. As always, I am Greg Poling with CSIS, joined by Elina Noor in Singapore. Hey, Elina.

Elina Noor (0:27)

Hey, Greg.

Greg Poling (0:28)

Good to be back after a little break. While my team was out in Manila and we dropped in the feed on the last episode, kind of a freebie that our colleagues at CSIS had recorded with me and Ambassador John Negroponte. But now we are back with some actual fresh content for South Station Radio.

To do that, we have back returning guest, Ken Lohatepanont. Ken is a PhD candidate in political science at the University of Michigan, and the author of Coffee Parliament, which is the substack everybody should be following if they want to know what's going on in Bangkok. Ken is also a glutton for punishment since he just told me that he's less than a month out from his dissertation defense and is choosing to come on our podcast. So Ken, I really appreciate your time.

Ken Lohatepanont (1:12)

Thank you for having me, Greg. And as always, thank you for the very kind words for the Coffee Parliament.

Greg Poling (1:17)

I mean, in all sincerity, there's not a lot of English language options.

If you are Southeast Asia Walla who wants to know what's going on in elite politics in Bangkok, and by not elite a lot, I mean like exactly one. It is to follow Ken's sub stack. Otherwise, you're left just like twice a year going to Bangkok and asking people what's going on. So it's been a huge help to us and the team at CSIS. The reason we brought you on now, not any one specific truth, just that we're about one year in to the government of Andeutin Charmirokhun. I wanted to check in with you. You had recently done a post on what we can tell about the Bhumjaithai government's strains one year in. So why don't I give you the open field here to talk a little bit about what you make of this center-right government after a year.

Ken Lohatepanont (2:06)

Yes. So just to give some context to our listeners, the Andeutin government was formed around September 2025

It had been formed as a very unusual government in Thai political history, right? It came after the fall of the Puetai government, which had been removed from office after former Prime Minister Parthongtong Chinawath was found guilty of ethical violations in her conduct related to Cambodia during the border conflict. And Andeutin had come to power as the leader of the third largest political party. So that wasn't the usual resume for prime minister, right? He didn't have anything close to a parliamentary majority, but he was able to form a confidence and supply agreement with the opposition People's Party that allowed him to take power. Since then, he's been able to convert his minority government into majority government following a dissolution of parliament that led to fresh elections in February 2026

And it's now been, if you count the minority government, it's now been one year since Andeutin has become prime minister, although only around about half a year since he's had this majority government going. I think that the first observation that I would make in the past year is that one of the most striking and most impressive things about Bhumjaithai's tenor thus far is how dominant they have been electorally and in managing political power in the current system. I've recently read a biography of his written of Anutin a few years ago before he became prime minister. In that book, they write that Anutin likes to call himself Geng Ho which is a, it refers to a type of curry in Thailand where you take leftover ingredients and you mix them together. He says, when he says that he's like Geng Ho, he didn't really explain what that means. But to me, it means that Anutin is not really about innovation. It's not really about inventing new political ideas or coming up with a whole new political strategy. But his strong suit thus far has been blending together existing political strengths that other parties also have, but then mixing them together and making himself much stronger. He's been able to attract a lot of the local political dynasties from across Thailand which guaranteed him a victory in the 2026 election. He's re-branded a party successfully, the Bhumjaithai Party, into Thailand's foremost conservative option.

He's also given his party a new technocratic polish, inviting respected experts and technocrats into his party. That's made the party more acceptable to the middle class as well. That's the first observation I'll make.