Feb. 17, 2026
Election Analysis: Young Thais, Old Parties...New Tricks? [S8E32]
![Election Analysis: Young Thais, Old Parties...New Tricks? [S8E32]](https://getpodpage.com/image_transform_gate_v3/-0MS2lkn-n1mg2uIH42TDMyqs18263CxxjMAwp5JVKE=/?image_url=https%3A%2F%2Fstatic.libsyn.com%2Fp%2Fassets%2Fa%2F6%2Fd%2Fc%2Fa6dc6f75b810082816c3140a3186d450%2FBKP8_EP_LOGO_32.jpg&w=1200&h=630&fill=blur "Election Analysis: Young Thais, Old Parties...New Tricks? [S8E32]"){kind=logo}
Tech Fail Alert! The last 5 minutes of our discussion was cut off by dastardly internet Gremlins, but we said most of what we wanted to say anyway.
In a follow-up to the recent Thai election, Greg and Ed do their best to make sense of the unexpected outcome. Greg defers to Ed’s poli sci knowledge, and Ed struggles through it despite his expertise being American politics. Before the election, polls indicate it was a three-horse race between the progressive faction, the Thaksin clan, and the conservative faction led by the current Prime Minister. Although the progressive faction was expected to grab a plurality, none of the three were expected to have the majority necessary to form a government - so the main question was going to be: Which two factions would team up?
Alas, the conservative faction ended up with a decisive victory, upending many of the gains that the progressive faction made in the last election, especially in rural areas. The margin of victory was such that the issue of coalition-building was almost moot due to the plethora of small parties to build the majority.
So what led to the conservative victory? Ed notes that the current Prime Minister capitalized on his incumbency to ride a nationalist wave driven by the recent conflict with Cambodia. This was somewhat expected, but not to the extent that came to pass. Other factors, such as the lack of a charismatic leader among the progressive faction could also have been a factor. Greg chalks it up to people just being tired of the constant back-and-forth where nothing ever really changes, so they just chose to stay home and not vote for anyone - basically, they prefer stability to fighting for change.
Last, the guys discuss the myriad claims of mistakes in the vote count and hope the Election Commission orders some recounts in at least some districts.
Greg Jorgensen 00:00:00 Hey guys, quick note for this episode. For some reason, while recording, Ed's track simply cuts off with about five minutes left in the main discussion. And then our love Lowther live with the segment. Now that missing segment is now apparently floating around in the Oort Cloud somewhere in space. So unfortunately the episode does end a bit abruptly. However, we kind of mostly had already said what we wanted to say already anyway, so we decided to just go ahead and post the show without the missing chunk.
Greg Jorgensen 00:00:31 On this episode, we discussed the recent election, the swing back to the conservative parties, and what it means for Tyler.
Ed 00:00:37 So if you've been watching the headlines recently and wondered what it all means, you'll dig this episode of the Bangkok Podcast.
Greg Jorgensen 00:01:02 Saudi crap. This is the Bangkok podcast. My name is Greg Jorgensen, a Canadian who came to Thailand in 2001 and was only in country for five days before I got attacked by a monkey.
Ed 00:01:13 Is that true?
Greg Jorgensen 00:01:14 Yes. It's true.
Greg Jorgensen 00:01:14 It was in Chang Chang Kong, I think, on the border of northern border. And he had attacked me in a cave. And I hated monkeys ever since. The vicious little bastards.
Ed 00:01:23 That's a great. That's a great Thai story. And I met Knuth, an American who came to Thailand on a one year teaching contract over 25 years ago, fell in love with using Thai traffic jams to practice my deep breathing exercises, so I never left.
Greg Jorgensen 00:01:38 Man, I'll tell you this my my million dollar idea that I want anyone to take up is I think there should be a special form of yoga that you do before you go into any bank or government office in Thailand. Just like deep breathing exercise to lower your pulse, reduce.
Ed 00:01:52 Your well, I mean, I do the you know, you know, I'm not a driver, but I take taxis all the time and, you know, I hit a traffic jam unexpectedly. I'm thinking about this because on the show I told my I told my ice bath story, but I was when I was supposed to meet my buddy, I was supposed to be my buddy at the ice bath place.
Ed 00:02:11 I walked out and there was just a break in traffic jam outside my place. And I, you know, I had to I had to get him a taxi. And I'm just sitting there as the clock ticks down and we have an appointment at a certain time. And I don't want I don't want to be late and there's nothing you can do. No, you can't do anything. And so I'm you're honestly, I mean, this is not ironic. I'm just sitting there breathing. Breathing, you know, breathe out, breathe in. And, it it's funny. After 25 years, it's the same as it was, you know, it's just it's it's a here we go again thing where you're okay. This is Bangkok, and I just have to eat this. I just have to calm down.
Greg Jorgensen 00:02:51 You just gotta eat shit.
Ed 00:02:53 Absolutely. Absolutely correct. Yeah. All right. I want to give a big thanks to all of our patrons who support the show. Patrons get every episode a day early behind the scenes photos of our interviews, a heads up to send questions to upcoming guests, and access to our discord server to chat with me, Greg, and other listeners around the world.
Ed 00:03:10 But best of all, patrons also get an unscripted, uncensored bonus episode every week where we riff on current events and Bangkok topics on this week's bonus show. We chatted about my experience with an ice bath at a place just off of Sukhumvit, and the associated endorphin rush that came with it. Greg's experience riding the almost fully renovated Green Mile bike path between Lumpinee and Bench Park. My experience installing the powerful and slightly scary open claw AI assistant on my computer, and a quick discussion of the rules around not being able to buy alcohol during a Thai election, to learn how to become a patron and get all this good stuff, plus full access to over 800 bonus and regular back episodes. Click the support button at the top of our website.
Greg Jorgensen 00:03:59 That's right. And don't forget, if you listen to us on Spotify, you can hear all the bonus shows there as well. If you're a patron. Simply link your Patreon account to your Spotify account. Add our new feed titled Bangkok Podcast Badass Patrons, only to hear the regular and bonus shows in the same place from the same feed.
Greg Jorgensen 00:04:15 Classy. Cool. All right. On this episode, we are kind of obligated to do a wrap up of the big national election that took place just a week ago. Now, keep in mind we record these shows a week in advance. So as we record, we've had a few days to absorb what happened. But unfortunately for many young progressive thinkers in Thailand who are hoping for change, and quite the opposite to the groundswell of progressive cause saw in the last election, the old guard stubbornly held on this time around. Which of course means there are all kinds of theories going around as to what happened and why and who's to blame and what's next. So Ed, being the senior policy analyst here at CU, is going to give us his take on the whole shebang while I listen intently and not along, pretending to understand the nuances of Thai politics. So. Editor. What happened?
Ed 00:05:01 very good question. It's funny. We've talked on the show. We've had we did our quiz show. I am teaching class now in Thai society.
Ed 00:05:09 So I have had the benefit of actually, I lectured on this a couple days ago. This exact topic of what happened. So I've got a lot of thoughts. obviously we're not in an academic setting, but I'll try to throw interesting ideas out there. So, listeners, before the election, we didn't do a main show about it, but on the bonus show, we talked about how the election appeared to be basically a three horse race between the Progressive Party, which is currently called the People's Party, and used the color orange, and put Thai, which is the Shinawatra clan, the kind of economic populist, the farmer policy party, which I think the color is red, I believe. and then the third faction is the Thai faction led by the current Prime minister, that I feel like they're not super conservative and they're not super military, but they're kind of they kind of now represent that faction. So, more traditional, more traditionalist. so we'll just call them the conservative faction, BJP. And before the election, it was kind of a three horse race, like roughly equal.
Ed 00:06:21 But most polls thought that the orange faction, the progressive faction, was going to win as they did in the last election. But the result was that the conservative faction basically crushed. You know, you can argue and get into the details of the constituency, you know, versus the party list. But the bottom line is the conservative faction did way better than people expected. And correspondingly, the People's Party and the and the Thai faction did worse than people expected. And so, as you've said in your intro, if you're a young progressive, it's bad news.
Greg Jorgensen 00:06:56 yeah. Yeah, I think, I mean, we talked recently to our friend Tao, who is a member of the progressive parties, the progressive side of things, and he on the show predicted that he would, that their their cause would get a lot more seats and a lot more votes than they actually ended up getting. And I think that was pretty easy to believe, because the last time around, it was kind of a shock how much the progressive side of things took away from the old established parties.
Greg Jorgensen 00:07:22 And, you know, I've talked to a couple of friends here who, who are Thai or who have Thai partners. And the Thai, they're they're pissed and they're talking about all kinds of things, vote buying and the secret ballots and all, all kinds of nefarious stuff. So, I haven't read much about it or personally seen it, but I've been told that people are angry.
Ed 00:07:43 Well, there's kind of two paths. There's two. There's two angles here. One angle is that this was a legitimate victory. So the BJP, the conservative faction, they just won straight up. And so. So that's one thing. And then you have to talk about how or why that happens. So I'm going to I'm going to focus mostly on that theory. But it turns out that in the last few days it's only been three days since the election. There's been a lot of evidence with a lot of real evidence, or at least examples of ballot counting, inconsistencies or mistakes. So as we record this, this is a developing story.
Ed 00:08:23 And I think so. I think the anger you're talking about is the sense that this outcome just can't be true. And, you know, these things, you know, in elections, this is a very difficult topic because when when people think you're going to win and then you get crushed, sometimes it's just hard to believe you, you know, so you're like, what? This has to be a scam.
Greg Jorgensen 00:08:43 Yeah. Well, if only there were other options, other similar stories I could point to.
Ed 00:08:48 Yeah. That's right. But, so for me, it's all, you know, it always comes down to the evidence and the rule of law. And we have an election commission here, which is designed to deal with complaints like this. And at least from what I've seen on Twitter, people seem to have evidence. So there's a threshold for how many complaints there has to be before they actually do a recount. So as as we record, this is a wildly developing story. So whether there actually ends up being any type of recount, we don't know yet.
Ed 00:09:19 But in a week there might be a, you know. So when listeners when you when you hear this, it might already be out that there's a recount. We can't say. Right. Yeah. So let's just operate on the assumption that the Conservative Party legitimately won. And so the question is what? You know, what could possibly explain a legitimate conservative win? And so I've got a couple of theories. So this is what I talked to my students about. One obvious, one obvious thing which which people talked about before the election is simply the fact that the conflict with Cambodia was used by the current Prime Minister to stoke nationalism, and so everyone thought that there might be a rallying around the flag effect. Yes, it's just people did not think it would be like people. People thought, okay, BJP is not that popular nationalism might bring them up to equality. You know, that's why these people were saying, okay, so this Cambodia thing might give them a chance to be equal, but in this case it's they actually crushed.
Ed 00:10:27 So they clearly won. So it's kind of the, the, the obvious explanation is that they got more mileage out of the nationalism in response to the conflict in Cambodia than people expected, like the people like the Thais really rallied around the current prime minister because he he was quite strict and harsh and used Pretty, extreme language. in in defense of Thai soil.
Greg Jorgensen 00:10:57 Yeah, I've heard that a lot from a lot of people. And that it's. And, you know, and they take it even further. Like, isn't it strange how the situation with Cambodia died down so quickly after the election was called? You know, things like that, but. Right. I mean, it's not a totally far out theory, right? Like these kind of things, these rallying cries, these nationalist sort of causes that cause people to rally around a leader or something like that is. I mean, that's that's been used for thousands of years. So it's not outside of the realm.
Ed 00:11:24 Yeah. No. Yeah. So I mean, you're you're raising a another kind of conspiratorial angle, which is that maybe, maybe the conflict or the stoking was a political strategy.
Ed 00:11:34 And, you know, like I said, people were I remember in August or September, people were saying, oh, the Prime Minister is going to use this in the election, or he's exaggerating this. So, I mean, if he, you know, if if this was a strategy all along, all we can say is that it worked. If that was the if that was the strategy, it worked. But you know. But that's just one theory. And it seems unlikely that that theory alone because again, JT previously was a strong minor party, but nowhere close to being a plurality. So I'm not sure that that that theory alone could, could explain it. So I've got a couple other theories. Okay. One thing, one thing I think that people don't value enough, but this is standard kind of American thinking that if you're in office you have this incumbent advantage. You have name and face recognition. And I got to say this, my students, you know, they're young and I think they lean progressive.
Ed 00:12:37 And when I ask them, you know, we were just talking informally. I didn't make them all reveal, but they did seem to be leaning towards the People's Party. And I was like, who are you going to vote for? They're like People's Party. And I said, and I said, oh, you like not a poem. And they were. They said who?
Greg Jorgensen 00:12:53 Really?
Ed 00:12:54 I was like, not a poem. He's the. He's the candidate. And they're like, oh, oh. And I think that and again, no critic like I've heard him in interviews, I think he's great. But he, he, he, he doesn't have like a lot of charisma. He's a he's different from Peeta. You know, in 2023 Peta or Peta should call him to be polite. he that dude is got game. And you know, he's got Clinton esque. And Obama asked personality. And you know, it's probably why he got banned by the Constitutional Court. And yeah, right.
Ed 00:13:27 You know, he's you know what I mean?
Greg Jorgensen 00:13:29 Likable.
Ed 00:13:29 Yeah. He's too good. And, not too long is my kind of candidate smart? Whatever. But he just he doesn't have the speaking. He doesn't have the game. And, so, I mean, I think that could that could play a role, I think I think that, the fact that the current prime minister, he's been around for 30 years in politics, everyone knows him, right? You know, you know, and then he's been prime minister since, I think, August or September. So that's not a full he doesn't have the full advantage of incumbency. But but I think people discount or in this case in Thailand, they didn't they don't factor in the fact that that the current prime minister just has a huge advantage being the Prime minister. Everyone knows his name, everyone knows his face.
Greg Jorgensen 00:14:10 It's funny you say that upon like, and this is a hugely anecdotal and I don't follow Thai politics that closely anymore anyway. But if Nandu Pong came into my house right now and sat down next to me, I wouldn't know who he was.
Greg Jorgensen 00:14:21 I know.
Ed 00:14:21 Right? Well, that's exactly what I'm saying. And it's not necessarily his fault either. I just think this is a factor that people are discounting. Or in US politics, we recognize this is huge. You know, in the last American election, the the tragic joke among Democrats was that if you look at Google Trends, the week before the election, Americans were googling, who is Kamala Harris?
Greg Jorgensen 00:14:46 Yeah, yeah.
Ed 00:14:47 You know, you know, because, you know, she has foreign American. Her her name is a little bit weird. She was a very. She was a very low key vice president. So. So, you know, the one thing Trump has is name recognition. So so I think that's a factor. But kind of the big story. So in my in my basically I hate to teach my class about 24 hours after the election. So in my quick analysis and I was looking at Thai websites and doing translations, a lot of people were talking about, something that, Thai people refer to as Ban Yai, the Ban Yai system.
Ed 00:15:24 So banning translates very simply into just big house. The big house. So yeah. So it doesn't the name doesn't really reveal what they're talking about. But in Thai politics, when people talk about Bosnia, they're talking about the effect of local, families and clans on the politics in that region. So in, in the, in the States, I think we would just use the we would probably use the expression probably would probably just say the local machine, and it just refers to areas, cities or regions that have a long history of politics with certain families or people just dominating, you know. So if you go, you know, if you go to Corot or if you go to the city or in the US might be, oh, if you're in southern Illinois, it's this family. They, you know, they've dominated, you know, it's the cousin is the mayor. You know, the brother is the the the state representative. Right. And you.
Greg Jorgensen 00:16:20 Just see and.
Ed 00:16:21 Yeah, it's it's like clan.
Ed 00:16:23 It's clannish or borderline mafia. So it's like there's basically like a local mafia that they've just for 50 years they've controlled the local. So ties called this. Yeah. And I think it refers to the idea that these clans actually it's actually a big house. So, you know, some type of provinces are huge. And it'll be like, well, you know, okay, if you want to get anything done in Chiang Rai, you got to go talk to someone who's in this family, like there.
Greg Jorgensen 00:16:54 Until they'll say like, oh, this is like blah blah blah province.
Ed 00:16:57 That's right, that's right. It's just like that. And everyone who everyone who grows up there, they understand this. And so this whole banyan system, it's, you know, you could make an argument that it's more democratic because it's about local control. And I do think that historically in Thailand, there's been a problem with with Bangkok being elitist and ignoring the provinces. So it's like, I think the binary system grew up because people who stayed and lived in the provinces realized that, hey, Bangkok's not going to do shit for us unless, you know, unless we organized.
Greg Jorgensen 00:17:31 Okay.
Ed 00:17:31 So yeah, so, so so you get you get local fixers, you know, like basically the binary system, it just means people who can get shit done. Or maybe they understand Bangkok or they have a friend in Bangkok, you know, so if you're from Nak or nowhere and you don't know anyone in Bangkok. You. You know you're not going to file the paperwork. Oh, I'm going to file the paperwork to get the Bangkok grant to do this. Like, you know, there's sewage leaking into my farm, so I'm going to apply for a national grant. No, you're not like you. Don't you don't know anything about that. You're going to go to the local dude who's a member of this family, and that guy knows the connections or the strings to pull. Sure. You know, and that's. Yeah. Patron. That's exactly right. So Bonnie and I refers to a patronage system. So, I mean, it could be the, you know, you could blame Bangkok leads for, for, for not taking care of the provinces.
Ed 00:18:18 So they have to take care of themselves. And it just turns out that this conservative faction is filled with these bosses. So it's like, you know, so it is a regular political party. But if you look at the actual characters and the movers and shakers in the conservative faction, it's a lot of 70 year old Don's, you know, Don's of this clan and that clan. So you kind of have to you have to kind of know Thai politics. You have to be able to look at the roster and go, oh, shit, these are all These are all like players. Like these are Paul's. You know. With like, machinations and strategies. And they. They know. They know how to hold on to power. Like they've been playing. You know, their grandfather was the poor guy in, in their district. You know, and so the party is just filled with old timers.
Greg Jorgensen 00:19:06 So grandfathered into the power structure. Right.
Ed 00:19:08 That's right. And so there's actually kind of a, you know, a interesting political story here where I think that the progressive faction really represents young, idealistic, often well-educated people who they have a list of policies and ideas we're going to change silent in these ten ways.
Ed 00:19:28 And I went to Oxford, and then there's these 70 year old dudes who've never left there, never left their province.
Greg Jorgensen 00:19:34 We've been talking about this on, on, on, on discord a little bit with some of the patrons. And it's just, you know, the thing I just keep going back to and you see it in every country and it's not a surprise. And I can't really blame them, but it's amazing how frightened old entrenched men get when when they see the new power coming in their rearview mirror and they'll do anything to hold onto power. It's not it's it's not like a groundbreaking theory, but it's amazing to what lengths they'll go to to ensure that the status quo doesn't change.
Ed 00:20:03 Well, I would offer just a slight correction. It's not fear. It's not fear. They're gloating like they're like. They're laughing. They're laughing at young people. Like they're. They're not afraid. They're. They understand. Wait. So these guys are not ideological. They don't. They don't care about policy.
Ed 00:20:20 They care about staying popular in their province. And they care about status and power. So they're they're laughing at these well-educated bankers. So they're not.
Greg Jorgensen 00:20:29 Afraid. They're scared about losing the power, especially.
Ed 00:20:32 Well, no, no, no. I mean, I understand your point. No, they don't. They don't want to lose power. And you're right when you say they'll do anything to hold on to power. That is correct. Right. But but they're not scared. They're they're laughing because they they know how to play. The game is the thing. But you're.
Greg Jorgensen 00:20:46 Right. Even after the last election, when they got trounced.
Ed 00:20:50 Well, no, I understand your point. So, I mean, they. I guess you're right. There could be a little bit scared. But in this, in this scenario, this is, you know, this is a victory for these old players of the system, right? And I, you know, maybe they I don't know what maybe maybe they reorganize themselves since 2023.
Ed 00:21:08 So why they didn't perform in 2023 and performed here. You know, that's a question. But I do think that, like I pointed out in 2023, like they had Peta, they had Peta, and there was this massive nationwide enthusiasm.
Greg Jorgensen 00:21:23 Yeah, I know dudes like Pete Buttigieg.
Ed 00:21:25 Yeah. That's right. It just overwhelmed the like the I think the old way of doing things and I think, the, the progressive faction getting smacked down by the Constitutional Court and Peta getting banned, I do think it just depressed. You know, I was chatting with my students about this and they were nodding their heads. I just think that, like, they lost motivation. And I just think a lot of progressive got got depressed by the eventual outcome. So they won last time, then they got smacked down by the Constitutional Court. Then I basically backstab them. It made it made an agreement, you know, deal with the devil with the conservative faction. And and so I think it was just so depressing that it was hard for the Progressive Party to just rebuild and get people to believe again.
Ed 00:22:13 So, so, so I think that I think there's a crisis of confidence amongst the progressives, which is is sad because this is a long fight. And I think from our conversations with Tau, we know that the, the leaders of the progressive faction, I think are smart and they're thinking long term. So they're, you know, they're like, no, this is a ten, 20 year struggle. But I think a lot of their voters don't understand how hard it's going to be to dislodge These old dudes that you're talking about like this. This is a a long term project.
Greg Jorgensen 00:22:49 Yeah, I totally get that. And I agree with it because, like, you can only see the system rigged against you so many times to pull the wool over your eyes or force you to take a step back before you go. What, you throw your hands up and you're like, you know what? Fuck it, I like I got a life to live, I can't. That's right. I can't get too deep into this.
Greg Jorgensen 00:23:09 Otherwise, I'm gonna turn around and I'll be 50 years old, and I'm gonna still be fighting the same fight that I was fighting when I was a university student. As noble people might be.
Ed 00:23:17 But people. People forget that, you know, Future Forward got banned, including its leaders, for ten years. So the first wave of progressive leaders got banned, then move forward, got banned, and their leaders got banned. So so they're they're the progressive faction is on their third and fourth string. Yeah. Like they're like.
Greg Jorgensen 00:23:38 At this point I'd be like, fuck it, I'm out.
Ed 00:23:39 Like yeah. Their leaders, their leaders have been banned. Like two generations of the leaders have been banned. I'm done. So? So the idea. So the idea that it's going to be hard for them to keep up the fight or maintain. So I think there's, you know, people like Kunta, there's people there. Leaders are still fighting. But when you've already lost your A team and your B team, it's hard to keep up the enthusiasm in the country.
Ed 00:24:03 And I think so if you factor that in with the nationalism thing it could explain the over performance. Now the big asterisk are all these questions about the vote count. So you know.
Greg Jorgensen 00:24:15 Can can I give you my over my theory about everything first before we get into the vote count? Sure, sure. My my theory is pretty simplistic compared to yours, but I just kind of think that now I don't know the vote, the vote count and how many people turned out or what the what the percentage was. But I just think that after so many ups and downs and fights and coups and shutdowns and curfews and whatever, I think that people at this point, just like it's related to what we were just talking about. But I think people at this point, they would rather have stability than change.
Ed 00:24:45 And oh yeah, a lot.
Greg Jorgensen 00:24:47 Of people are just like, you know, I think we haven't had any malls burning down lately. There's not been any wide scale protests. I'm raising my family. I got a job to concentrate on.
Greg Jorgensen 00:24:56 Like, I'm fine with that.
Ed 00:24:58 I think you're largely correct, but I would fine tune the answer. Okay? It's not. It's not that people who before want to change are saying, now I will settle for stability. That's not it. It's the people that are willing to fight for change are demotivated, and the people that always wanted things to stay the same are more motivated. So the like the conservative faction that don't want change, they're more motivated by the current prime minister because they they finally got it. They got a conservative prime minister from that faction, so they got more motivated, whereas I think the progressive got demotivated. But I'm not sure. I mean, the way you explained it, you made it sound like people switched sides or gave up. And so I'm going to vote for the conservative faction now. I doubt that happened.
Greg Jorgensen 00:25:41 No, no, I think they just they just said, like, I'm gonna sit this one out. I'm done.
Ed 00:25:45 Yeah. That's it. So it's not I, I'm gonna I'm going to take stability versus change.
Ed 00:25:50 I don't think that's what happened. I just think the conservative part of the country. It got motivated by the nationalism. So their fire. They're fired up because of the nationalism and the leaders of the progressive faction, because their leadership is decimated from the bands, and because that they didn't know how to respond to the Cambodia crisis properly. They were very aware that they were possibly getting outmaneuvered. That you end up with this kind of disastrous situation where the progressive faction is demotivated and turnout is down. So the overall turnout for the election was way down. It, you know, three years ago it was or it's about two and a half years ago it was 75%, which was very high. But this this time the turnout was 62%. It's really it's down by 12, 13%, which is huge. So it's it's the motivation of the change vote that I think is the explainer. Now, again, we cannot solve this on this show, but there's a lot of stories of irregularities in the vote count.
Ed 00:26:53 So we might get a recount. So it's it's and I don't the recount is not going to change the result. But it could close the gap okay. You know it's it's possible maybe because right now the way it stands, you know it's roughly it's it's like it's like BGT 200 People's Party 185. So right now, right now the conservative faction just crushed, you know, it was way ahead. So who knows. Maybe there could be a recount. It could it could close the gap a little bit, but, it seems unlikely it unless there's just some massive conspiracy. It seems very unlikely we're going to get some change in the outcome.
Greg Jorgensen 00:27:36 Well, what are some of the conspiracies going around and are they are they do they range from like wild to believable or dangerous.
Ed 00:27:42 Well, I think the, the, the standard conspiracy is just that there was a lot of vote buying, you know, buying of votes. And this explains, you know, BJP, you know, doing better. But there's larger conspiracies about how the members of the election commission were chosen.
Ed 00:27:57 So all of this stuff, all of this stuff is super political because, you know, people aren't stupid. And if the if you have a if you have an independent commission that can evaluate elections, that's a very powerful thing. So it matters who is on the election commission. And so again, there's been all these strategic moves by BJP and replacing this person. So so the the the larger conspiracies that maybe somehow the election commission has been compromised. And so that allowed them to actually alter votes. So people have been preventing presenting evidence of just tallies that don't add up, just horrible accounts. And and the theory is possibly supporters of the Conservative Party realized that they own the Election commission so that they could get away with massive voter fraud. But again, this is all going to come down to the evidence, and most of what I've seen is compelling but anecdotal, you know, not not widespread, abuse. But we'll see. Again, this is a this is an it's a developing story as they as they say on the news.
Greg Jorgensen 00:29:04 It's funny how like, I'm, I'm, I'm not a historical expert on this stuff, but I think we certainly saw it in the United States where there's sort of like they're reaching deep behind the facade to get to the levers of power, behind the scenes, behind the scenes. And that's how they're sort of pulling the strings from way back where I haven't really seen anyone do that before.
Ed 00:29:26 But yeah, in general, in general, I'm not very conspiratorial, but I, I was chatting on discord with some people who they were, they made a good point that, when rule of law is weak. And there's this deference to authority. And, the, the investigative reporting and free speech is is not very strong. The press is not very strong. It it basically means the elite, the elite can get away with more stuff. So, you know, so, so, so I do think it's true in Thailand if you, if you have like quote unquote a crazy conspiracy theory about, oh, the whole election, you know, the whole election is rigged.
Ed 00:30:08 I think here, I think here, it's not so crazy.
Greg Jorgensen 00:30:11 I saw I saw you talking about it on discord. You're like, well, actually.
Ed 00:30:14 Maybe because because, you know, there is a free press here, but they investigative reporting is way less a thing here than in the States. There's just there's just not a spotlight on powerful people here as there are in in the West. Totally. And so, so I do think elites, they're operating in the shadows that which means that like, they can probably get away with more shit.
Greg Jorgensen 00:30:40 My favorite quote about Thailand's free press is someone once said, like, of course we have free press. There's just certain things you're not allowed to report on.
Ed 00:30:46 That's right. Yeah, that's roughly it. So I think here, if you happen to be conspiracy minded, I think you're, you're you're you're more rational here than, than back home, even though, you know, some conspiracies back home do end up being true. Of course. So, yeah, it's you know, it's hard to hard to calibrate this stuff.
Ed 00:31:05 So I hope there are some recounts, you know, and I read it just today, I read a post where someone said, hey, they should have a recount just to boost confidence, which is that's that's how I would think about it.
Greg Jorgensen 00:31:16 Oh, interesting. Okay. And that's where the episode cuts off. So we'll just leave it there. Our good friend Aina told us on discord that she blames Ed's new AI assistant that he installed last week. And I gotta say, it's a compelling theory. Gremlins. Anyway, sorry about that, everyone, but let's wrap it up.
Ed 00:31:32 A final thanks to our patrons who support the show. Patrons get a ton of cool perks and the warm fuzzy feeling, knowing that they're helping and are never ending. Quest for cool content. Find out more by clicking support on our website and connect with us online. Where Bangkok Podcast on social media, Bangkok Podcast on the web or simply Bangkok Podcast at gmail.com. We love hearing from our listeners and always reply to our messages.
Ed 00:31:58 Unless, of course, you're an agent who sends endless pitch emails on behalf of a client.
Greg Jorgensen 00:32:03 That's right. You can also listen to each episode on YouTube. Send us a voicemail through the website. We'll feature that on the show. Find me on Bluesky BCC. Greg. Thanks for listening, folks. We'll see you back here next week.
Greg Jorgensen 00:00:31 On this episode, we discussed the recent election, the swing back to the conservative parties, and what it means for Tyler.
Ed 00:00:37 So if you've been watching the headlines recently and wondered what it all means, you'll dig this episode of the Bangkok Podcast.
Greg Jorgensen 00:01:02 Saudi crap. This is the Bangkok podcast. My name is Greg Jorgensen, a Canadian who came to Thailand in 2001 and was only in country for five days before I got attacked by a monkey.
Ed 00:01:13 Is that true?
Greg Jorgensen 00:01:14 Yes. It's true.
Greg Jorgensen 00:01:14 It was in Chang Chang Kong, I think, on the border of northern border. And he had attacked me in a cave. And I hated monkeys ever since. The vicious little bastards.
Ed 00:01:23 That's a great. That's a great Thai story. And I met Knuth, an American who came to Thailand on a one year teaching contract over 25 years ago, fell in love with using Thai traffic jams to practice my deep breathing exercises, so I never left.
Greg Jorgensen 00:01:38 Man, I'll tell you this my my million dollar idea that I want anyone to take up is I think there should be a special form of yoga that you do before you go into any bank or government office in Thailand. Just like deep breathing exercise to lower your pulse, reduce.
Ed 00:01:52 Your well, I mean, I do the you know, you know, I'm not a driver, but I take taxis all the time and, you know, I hit a traffic jam unexpectedly. I'm thinking about this because on the show I told my I told my ice bath story, but I was when I was supposed to meet my buddy, I was supposed to be my buddy at the ice bath place.
Ed 00:02:11 I walked out and there was just a break in traffic jam outside my place. And I, you know, I had to I had to get him a taxi. And I'm just sitting there as the clock ticks down and we have an appointment at a certain time. And I don't want I don't want to be late and there's nothing you can do. No, you can't do anything. And so I'm you're honestly, I mean, this is not ironic. I'm just sitting there breathing. Breathing, you know, breathe out, breathe in. And, it it's funny. After 25 years, it's the same as it was, you know, it's just it's it's a here we go again thing where you're okay. This is Bangkok, and I just have to eat this. I just have to calm down.
Greg Jorgensen 00:02:51 You just gotta eat shit.
Ed 00:02:53 Absolutely. Absolutely correct. Yeah. All right. I want to give a big thanks to all of our patrons who support the show. Patrons get every episode a day early behind the scenes photos of our interviews, a heads up to send questions to upcoming guests, and access to our discord server to chat with me, Greg, and other listeners around the world.
Ed 00:03:10 But best of all, patrons also get an unscripted, uncensored bonus episode every week where we riff on current events and Bangkok topics on this week's bonus show. We chatted about my experience with an ice bath at a place just off of Sukhumvit, and the associated endorphin rush that came with it. Greg's experience riding the almost fully renovated Green Mile bike path between Lumpinee and Bench Park. My experience installing the powerful and slightly scary open claw AI assistant on my computer, and a quick discussion of the rules around not being able to buy alcohol during a Thai election, to learn how to become a patron and get all this good stuff, plus full access to over 800 bonus and regular back episodes. Click the support button at the top of our website.
Greg Jorgensen 00:03:59 That's right. And don't forget, if you listen to us on Spotify, you can hear all the bonus shows there as well. If you're a patron. Simply link your Patreon account to your Spotify account. Add our new feed titled Bangkok Podcast Badass Patrons, only to hear the regular and bonus shows in the same place from the same feed.
Greg Jorgensen 00:04:15 Classy. Cool. All right. On this episode, we are kind of obligated to do a wrap up of the big national election that took place just a week ago. Now, keep in mind we record these shows a week in advance. So as we record, we've had a few days to absorb what happened. But unfortunately for many young progressive thinkers in Thailand who are hoping for change, and quite the opposite to the groundswell of progressive cause saw in the last election, the old guard stubbornly held on this time around. Which of course means there are all kinds of theories going around as to what happened and why and who's to blame and what's next. So Ed, being the senior policy analyst here at CU, is going to give us his take on the whole shebang while I listen intently and not along, pretending to understand the nuances of Thai politics. So. Editor. What happened?
Ed 00:05:01 very good question. It's funny. We've talked on the show. We've had we did our quiz show. I am teaching class now in Thai society.
Ed 00:05:09 So I have had the benefit of actually, I lectured on this a couple days ago. This exact topic of what happened. So I've got a lot of thoughts. obviously we're not in an academic setting, but I'll try to throw interesting ideas out there. So, listeners, before the election, we didn't do a main show about it, but on the bonus show, we talked about how the election appeared to be basically a three horse race between the Progressive Party, which is currently called the People's Party, and used the color orange, and put Thai, which is the Shinawatra clan, the kind of economic populist, the farmer policy party, which I think the color is red, I believe. and then the third faction is the Thai faction led by the current Prime minister, that I feel like they're not super conservative and they're not super military, but they're kind of they kind of now represent that faction. So, more traditional, more traditionalist. so we'll just call them the conservative faction, BJP. And before the election, it was kind of a three horse race, like roughly equal.
Ed 00:06:21 But most polls thought that the orange faction, the progressive faction, was going to win as they did in the last election. But the result was that the conservative faction basically crushed. You know, you can argue and get into the details of the constituency, you know, versus the party list. But the bottom line is the conservative faction did way better than people expected. And correspondingly, the People's Party and the and the Thai faction did worse than people expected. And so, as you've said in your intro, if you're a young progressive, it's bad news.
Greg Jorgensen 00:06:56 yeah. Yeah, I think, I mean, we talked recently to our friend Tao, who is a member of the progressive parties, the progressive side of things, and he on the show predicted that he would, that their their cause would get a lot more seats and a lot more votes than they actually ended up getting. And I think that was pretty easy to believe, because the last time around, it was kind of a shock how much the progressive side of things took away from the old established parties.
Greg Jorgensen 00:07:22 And, you know, I've talked to a couple of friends here who, who are Thai or who have Thai partners. And the Thai, they're they're pissed and they're talking about all kinds of things, vote buying and the secret ballots and all, all kinds of nefarious stuff. So, I haven't read much about it or personally seen it, but I've been told that people are angry.
Ed 00:07:43 Well, there's kind of two paths. There's two. There's two angles here. One angle is that this was a legitimate victory. So the BJP, the conservative faction, they just won straight up. And so. So that's one thing. And then you have to talk about how or why that happens. So I'm going to I'm going to focus mostly on that theory. But it turns out that in the last few days it's only been three days since the election. There's been a lot of evidence with a lot of real evidence, or at least examples of ballot counting, inconsistencies or mistakes. So as we record this, this is a developing story.
Ed 00:08:23 And I think so. I think the anger you're talking about is the sense that this outcome just can't be true. And, you know, these things, you know, in elections, this is a very difficult topic because when when people think you're going to win and then you get crushed, sometimes it's just hard to believe you, you know, so you're like, what? This has to be a scam.
Greg Jorgensen 00:08:43 Yeah. Well, if only there were other options, other similar stories I could point to.
Ed 00:08:48 Yeah. That's right. But, so for me, it's all, you know, it always comes down to the evidence and the rule of law. And we have an election commission here, which is designed to deal with complaints like this. And at least from what I've seen on Twitter, people seem to have evidence. So there's a threshold for how many complaints there has to be before they actually do a recount. So as as we record, this is a wildly developing story. So whether there actually ends up being any type of recount, we don't know yet.
Ed 00:09:19 But in a week there might be a, you know. So when listeners when you when you hear this, it might already be out that there's a recount. We can't say. Right. Yeah. So let's just operate on the assumption that the Conservative Party legitimately won. And so the question is what? You know, what could possibly explain a legitimate conservative win? And so I've got a couple of theories. So this is what I talked to my students about. One obvious, one obvious thing which which people talked about before the election is simply the fact that the conflict with Cambodia was used by the current Prime Minister to stoke nationalism, and so everyone thought that there might be a rallying around the flag effect. Yes, it's just people did not think it would be like people. People thought, okay, BJP is not that popular nationalism might bring them up to equality. You know, that's why these people were saying, okay, so this Cambodia thing might give them a chance to be equal, but in this case it's they actually crushed.
Ed 00:10:27 So they clearly won. So it's kind of the, the, the obvious explanation is that they got more mileage out of the nationalism in response to the conflict in Cambodia than people expected, like the people like the Thais really rallied around the current prime minister because he he was quite strict and harsh and used Pretty, extreme language. in in defense of Thai soil.
Greg Jorgensen 00:10:57 Yeah, I've heard that a lot from a lot of people. And that it's. And, you know, and they take it even further. Like, isn't it strange how the situation with Cambodia died down so quickly after the election was called? You know, things like that, but. Right. I mean, it's not a totally far out theory, right? Like these kind of things, these rallying cries, these nationalist sort of causes that cause people to rally around a leader or something like that is. I mean, that's that's been used for thousands of years. So it's not outside of the realm.
Ed 00:11:24 Yeah. No. Yeah. So I mean, you're you're raising a another kind of conspiratorial angle, which is that maybe, maybe the conflict or the stoking was a political strategy.
Ed 00:11:34 And, you know, like I said, people were I remember in August or September, people were saying, oh, the Prime Minister is going to use this in the election, or he's exaggerating this. So, I mean, if he, you know, if if this was a strategy all along, all we can say is that it worked. If that was the if that was the strategy, it worked. But you know. But that's just one theory. And it seems unlikely that that theory alone because again, JT previously was a strong minor party, but nowhere close to being a plurality. So I'm not sure that that that theory alone could, could explain it. So I've got a couple other theories. Okay. One thing, one thing I think that people don't value enough, but this is standard kind of American thinking that if you're in office you have this incumbent advantage. You have name and face recognition. And I got to say this, my students, you know, they're young and I think they lean progressive.
Ed 00:12:37 And when I ask them, you know, we were just talking informally. I didn't make them all reveal, but they did seem to be leaning towards the People's Party. And I was like, who are you going to vote for? They're like People's Party. And I said, and I said, oh, you like not a poem. And they were. They said who?
Greg Jorgensen 00:12:53 Really?
Ed 00:12:54 I was like, not a poem. He's the. He's the candidate. And they're like, oh, oh. And I think that and again, no critic like I've heard him in interviews, I think he's great. But he, he, he, he doesn't have like a lot of charisma. He's a he's different from Peeta. You know, in 2023 Peta or Peta should call him to be polite. he that dude is got game. And you know, he's got Clinton esque. And Obama asked personality. And you know, it's probably why he got banned by the Constitutional Court. And yeah, right.
Ed 00:13:27 You know, he's you know what I mean?
Greg Jorgensen 00:13:29 Likable.
Ed 00:13:29 Yeah. He's too good. And, not too long is my kind of candidate smart? Whatever. But he just he doesn't have the speaking. He doesn't have the game. And, so, I mean, I think that could that could play a role, I think I think that, the fact that the current prime minister, he's been around for 30 years in politics, everyone knows him, right? You know, you know, and then he's been prime minister since, I think, August or September. So that's not a full he doesn't have the full advantage of incumbency. But but I think people discount or in this case in Thailand, they didn't they don't factor in the fact that that the current prime minister just has a huge advantage being the Prime minister. Everyone knows his name, everyone knows his face.
Greg Jorgensen 00:14:10 It's funny you say that upon like, and this is a hugely anecdotal and I don't follow Thai politics that closely anymore anyway. But if Nandu Pong came into my house right now and sat down next to me, I wouldn't know who he was.
Greg Jorgensen 00:14:21 I know.
Ed 00:14:21 Right? Well, that's exactly what I'm saying. And it's not necessarily his fault either. I just think this is a factor that people are discounting. Or in US politics, we recognize this is huge. You know, in the last American election, the the tragic joke among Democrats was that if you look at Google Trends, the week before the election, Americans were googling, who is Kamala Harris?
Greg Jorgensen 00:14:46 Yeah, yeah.
Ed 00:14:47 You know, you know, because, you know, she has foreign American. Her her name is a little bit weird. She was a very. She was a very low key vice president. So. So, you know, the one thing Trump has is name recognition. So so I think that's a factor. But kind of the big story. So in my in my basically I hate to teach my class about 24 hours after the election. So in my quick analysis and I was looking at Thai websites and doing translations, a lot of people were talking about, something that, Thai people refer to as Ban Yai, the Ban Yai system.
Ed 00:15:24 So banning translates very simply into just big house. The big house. So yeah. So it doesn't the name doesn't really reveal what they're talking about. But in Thai politics, when people talk about Bosnia, they're talking about the effect of local, families and clans on the politics in that region. So in, in the, in the States, I think we would just use the we would probably use the expression probably would probably just say the local machine, and it just refers to areas, cities or regions that have a long history of politics with certain families or people just dominating, you know. So if you go, you know, if you go to Corot or if you go to the city or in the US might be, oh, if you're in southern Illinois, it's this family. They, you know, they've dominated, you know, it's the cousin is the mayor. You know, the brother is the the the state representative. Right. And you.
Greg Jorgensen 00:16:20 Just see and.
Ed 00:16:21 Yeah, it's it's like clan.
Ed 00:16:23 It's clannish or borderline mafia. So it's like there's basically like a local mafia that they've just for 50 years they've controlled the local. So ties called this. Yeah. And I think it refers to the idea that these clans actually it's actually a big house. So, you know, some type of provinces are huge. And it'll be like, well, you know, okay, if you want to get anything done in Chiang Rai, you got to go talk to someone who's in this family, like there.
Greg Jorgensen 00:16:54 Until they'll say like, oh, this is like blah blah blah province.
Ed 00:16:57 That's right, that's right. It's just like that. And everyone who everyone who grows up there, they understand this. And so this whole banyan system, it's, you know, you could make an argument that it's more democratic because it's about local control. And I do think that historically in Thailand, there's been a problem with with Bangkok being elitist and ignoring the provinces. So it's like, I think the binary system grew up because people who stayed and lived in the provinces realized that, hey, Bangkok's not going to do shit for us unless, you know, unless we organized.
Greg Jorgensen 00:17:31 Okay.
Ed 00:17:31 So yeah, so, so so you get you get local fixers, you know, like basically the binary system, it just means people who can get shit done. Or maybe they understand Bangkok or they have a friend in Bangkok, you know, so if you're from Nak or nowhere and you don't know anyone in Bangkok. You. You know you're not going to file the paperwork. Oh, I'm going to file the paperwork to get the Bangkok grant to do this. Like, you know, there's sewage leaking into my farm, so I'm going to apply for a national grant. No, you're not like you. Don't you don't know anything about that. You're going to go to the local dude who's a member of this family, and that guy knows the connections or the strings to pull. Sure. You know, and that's. Yeah. Patron. That's exactly right. So Bonnie and I refers to a patronage system. So, I mean, it could be the, you know, you could blame Bangkok leads for, for, for not taking care of the provinces.
Ed 00:18:18 So they have to take care of themselves. And it just turns out that this conservative faction is filled with these bosses. So it's like, you know, so it is a regular political party. But if you look at the actual characters and the movers and shakers in the conservative faction, it's a lot of 70 year old Don's, you know, Don's of this clan and that clan. So you kind of have to you have to kind of know Thai politics. You have to be able to look at the roster and go, oh, shit, these are all These are all like players. Like these are Paul's. You know. With like, machinations and strategies. And they. They know. They know how to hold on to power. Like they've been playing. You know, their grandfather was the poor guy in, in their district. You know, and so the party is just filled with old timers.
Greg Jorgensen 00:19:06 So grandfathered into the power structure. Right.
Ed 00:19:08 That's right. And so there's actually kind of a, you know, a interesting political story here where I think that the progressive faction really represents young, idealistic, often well-educated people who they have a list of policies and ideas we're going to change silent in these ten ways.
Ed 00:19:28 And I went to Oxford, and then there's these 70 year old dudes who've never left there, never left their province.
Greg Jorgensen 00:19:34 We've been talking about this on, on, on, on discord a little bit with some of the patrons. And it's just, you know, the thing I just keep going back to and you see it in every country and it's not a surprise. And I can't really blame them, but it's amazing how frightened old entrenched men get when when they see the new power coming in their rearview mirror and they'll do anything to hold onto power. It's not it's it's not like a groundbreaking theory, but it's amazing to what lengths they'll go to to ensure that the status quo doesn't change.
Ed 00:20:03 Well, I would offer just a slight correction. It's not fear. It's not fear. They're gloating like they're like. They're laughing. They're laughing at young people. Like they're. They're not afraid. They're. They understand. Wait. So these guys are not ideological. They don't. They don't care about policy.
Ed 00:20:20 They care about staying popular in their province. And they care about status and power. So they're they're laughing at these well-educated bankers. So they're not.
Greg Jorgensen 00:20:29 Afraid. They're scared about losing the power, especially.
Ed 00:20:32 Well, no, no, no. I mean, I understand your point. No, they don't. They don't want to lose power. And you're right when you say they'll do anything to hold on to power. That is correct. Right. But but they're not scared. They're they're laughing because they they know how to play. The game is the thing. But you're.
Greg Jorgensen 00:20:46 Right. Even after the last election, when they got trounced.
Ed 00:20:50 Well, no, I understand your point. So, I mean, they. I guess you're right. There could be a little bit scared. But in this, in this scenario, this is, you know, this is a victory for these old players of the system, right? And I, you know, maybe they I don't know what maybe maybe they reorganize themselves since 2023.
Ed 00:21:08 So why they didn't perform in 2023 and performed here. You know, that's a question. But I do think that, like I pointed out in 2023, like they had Peta, they had Peta, and there was this massive nationwide enthusiasm.
Greg Jorgensen 00:21:23 Yeah, I know dudes like Pete Buttigieg.
Ed 00:21:25 Yeah. That's right. It just overwhelmed the like the I think the old way of doing things and I think, the, the progressive faction getting smacked down by the Constitutional Court and Peta getting banned, I do think it just depressed. You know, I was chatting with my students about this and they were nodding their heads. I just think that, like, they lost motivation. And I just think a lot of progressive got got depressed by the eventual outcome. So they won last time, then they got smacked down by the Constitutional Court. Then I basically backstab them. It made it made an agreement, you know, deal with the devil with the conservative faction. And and so I think it was just so depressing that it was hard for the Progressive Party to just rebuild and get people to believe again.
Ed 00:22:13 So, so, so I think that I think there's a crisis of confidence amongst the progressives, which is is sad because this is a long fight. And I think from our conversations with Tau, we know that the, the leaders of the progressive faction, I think are smart and they're thinking long term. So they're, you know, they're like, no, this is a ten, 20 year struggle. But I think a lot of their voters don't understand how hard it's going to be to dislodge These old dudes that you're talking about like this. This is a a long term project.
Greg Jorgensen 00:22:49 Yeah, I totally get that. And I agree with it because, like, you can only see the system rigged against you so many times to pull the wool over your eyes or force you to take a step back before you go. What, you throw your hands up and you're like, you know what? Fuck it, I like I got a life to live, I can't. That's right. I can't get too deep into this.
Greg Jorgensen 00:23:09 Otherwise, I'm gonna turn around and I'll be 50 years old, and I'm gonna still be fighting the same fight that I was fighting when I was a university student. As noble people might be.
Ed 00:23:17 But people. People forget that, you know, Future Forward got banned, including its leaders, for ten years. So the first wave of progressive leaders got banned, then move forward, got banned, and their leaders got banned. So so they're they're the progressive faction is on their third and fourth string. Yeah. Like they're like.
Greg Jorgensen 00:23:38 At this point I'd be like, fuck it, I'm out.
Ed 00:23:39 Like yeah. Their leaders, their leaders have been banned. Like two generations of the leaders have been banned. I'm done. So? So the idea. So the idea that it's going to be hard for them to keep up the fight or maintain. So I think there's, you know, people like Kunta, there's people there. Leaders are still fighting. But when you've already lost your A team and your B team, it's hard to keep up the enthusiasm in the country.
Ed 00:24:03 And I think so if you factor that in with the nationalism thing it could explain the over performance. Now the big asterisk are all these questions about the vote count. So you know.
Greg Jorgensen 00:24:15 Can can I give you my over my theory about everything first before we get into the vote count? Sure, sure. My my theory is pretty simplistic compared to yours, but I just kind of think that now I don't know the vote, the vote count and how many people turned out or what the what the percentage was. But I just think that after so many ups and downs and fights and coups and shutdowns and curfews and whatever, I think that people at this point, just like it's related to what we were just talking about. But I think people at this point, they would rather have stability than change.
Ed 00:24:45 And oh yeah, a lot.
Greg Jorgensen 00:24:47 Of people are just like, you know, I think we haven't had any malls burning down lately. There's not been any wide scale protests. I'm raising my family. I got a job to concentrate on.
Greg Jorgensen 00:24:56 Like, I'm fine with that.
Ed 00:24:58 I think you're largely correct, but I would fine tune the answer. Okay? It's not. It's not that people who before want to change are saying, now I will settle for stability. That's not it. It's the people that are willing to fight for change are demotivated, and the people that always wanted things to stay the same are more motivated. So the like the conservative faction that don't want change, they're more motivated by the current prime minister because they they finally got it. They got a conservative prime minister from that faction, so they got more motivated, whereas I think the progressive got demotivated. But I'm not sure. I mean, the way you explained it, you made it sound like people switched sides or gave up. And so I'm going to vote for the conservative faction now. I doubt that happened.
Greg Jorgensen 00:25:41 No, no, I think they just they just said, like, I'm gonna sit this one out. I'm done.
Ed 00:25:45 Yeah. That's it. So it's not I, I'm gonna I'm going to take stability versus change.
Ed 00:25:50 I don't think that's what happened. I just think the conservative part of the country. It got motivated by the nationalism. So their fire. They're fired up because of the nationalism and the leaders of the progressive faction, because their leadership is decimated from the bands, and because that they didn't know how to respond to the Cambodia crisis properly. They were very aware that they were possibly getting outmaneuvered. That you end up with this kind of disastrous situation where the progressive faction is demotivated and turnout is down. So the overall turnout for the election was way down. It, you know, three years ago it was or it's about two and a half years ago it was 75%, which was very high. But this this time the turnout was 62%. It's really it's down by 12, 13%, which is huge. So it's it's the motivation of the change vote that I think is the explainer. Now, again, we cannot solve this on this show, but there's a lot of stories of irregularities in the vote count.
Ed 00:26:53 So we might get a recount. So it's it's and I don't the recount is not going to change the result. But it could close the gap okay. You know it's it's possible maybe because right now the way it stands, you know it's roughly it's it's like it's like BGT 200 People's Party 185. So right now, right now the conservative faction just crushed, you know, it was way ahead. So who knows. Maybe there could be a recount. It could it could close the gap a little bit, but, it seems unlikely it unless there's just some massive conspiracy. It seems very unlikely we're going to get some change in the outcome.
Greg Jorgensen 00:27:36 Well, what are some of the conspiracies going around and are they are they do they range from like wild to believable or dangerous.
Ed 00:27:42 Well, I think the, the, the standard conspiracy is just that there was a lot of vote buying, you know, buying of votes. And this explains, you know, BJP, you know, doing better. But there's larger conspiracies about how the members of the election commission were chosen.
Ed 00:27:57 So all of this stuff, all of this stuff is super political because, you know, people aren't stupid. And if the if you have a if you have an independent commission that can evaluate elections, that's a very powerful thing. So it matters who is on the election commission. And so again, there's been all these strategic moves by BJP and replacing this person. So so the the the larger conspiracies that maybe somehow the election commission has been compromised. And so that allowed them to actually alter votes. So people have been preventing presenting evidence of just tallies that don't add up, just horrible accounts. And and the theory is possibly supporters of the Conservative Party realized that they own the Election commission so that they could get away with massive voter fraud. But again, this is all going to come down to the evidence, and most of what I've seen is compelling but anecdotal, you know, not not widespread, abuse. But we'll see. Again, this is a this is an it's a developing story as they as they say on the news.
Greg Jorgensen 00:29:04 It's funny how like, I'm, I'm, I'm not a historical expert on this stuff, but I think we certainly saw it in the United States where there's sort of like they're reaching deep behind the facade to get to the levers of power, behind the scenes, behind the scenes. And that's how they're sort of pulling the strings from way back where I haven't really seen anyone do that before.
Ed 00:29:26 But yeah, in general, in general, I'm not very conspiratorial, but I, I was chatting on discord with some people who they were, they made a good point that, when rule of law is weak. And there's this deference to authority. And, the, the investigative reporting and free speech is is not very strong. The press is not very strong. It it basically means the elite, the elite can get away with more stuff. So, you know, so, so, so I do think it's true in Thailand if you, if you have like quote unquote a crazy conspiracy theory about, oh, the whole election, you know, the whole election is rigged.
Ed 00:30:08 I think here, I think here, it's not so crazy.
Greg Jorgensen 00:30:11 I saw I saw you talking about it on discord. You're like, well, actually.
Ed 00:30:14 Maybe because because, you know, there is a free press here, but they investigative reporting is way less a thing here than in the States. There's just there's just not a spotlight on powerful people here as there are in in the West. Totally. And so, so I do think elites, they're operating in the shadows that which means that like, they can probably get away with more shit.
Greg Jorgensen 00:30:40 My favorite quote about Thailand's free press is someone once said, like, of course we have free press. There's just certain things you're not allowed to report on.
Ed 00:30:46 That's right. Yeah, that's roughly it. So I think here, if you happen to be conspiracy minded, I think you're, you're you're you're more rational here than, than back home, even though, you know, some conspiracies back home do end up being true. Of course. So, yeah, it's you know, it's hard to hard to calibrate this stuff.
Ed 00:31:05 So I hope there are some recounts, you know, and I read it just today, I read a post where someone said, hey, they should have a recount just to boost confidence, which is that's that's how I would think about it.
Greg Jorgensen 00:31:16 Oh, interesting. Okay. And that's where the episode cuts off. So we'll just leave it there. Our good friend Aina told us on discord that she blames Ed's new AI assistant that he installed last week. And I gotta say, it's a compelling theory. Gremlins. Anyway, sorry about that, everyone, but let's wrap it up.
Ed 00:31:32 A final thanks to our patrons who support the show. Patrons get a ton of cool perks and the warm fuzzy feeling, knowing that they're helping and are never ending. Quest for cool content. Find out more by clicking support on our website and connect with us online. Where Bangkok Podcast on social media, Bangkok Podcast on the web or simply Bangkok Podcast at gmail.com. We love hearing from our listeners and always reply to our messages.
Ed 00:31:58 Unless, of course, you're an agent who sends endless pitch emails on behalf of a client.
Greg Jorgensen 00:32:03 That's right. You can also listen to each episode on YouTube. Send us a voicemail through the website. We'll feature that on the show. Find me on Bluesky BCC. Greg. Thanks for listening, folks. We'll see you back here next week.
