The Return of Bureaucratic Polity and Taking Advantage of Political Institutions under the Government of General Prayuth Chan-o-cha and Srettha Thavisin

Abstract

Since the coup 2014, the democratization index of Thailand has declined continuously. The political power was turned to the control bureaucrats (public servants) instead of businessmen or politicians. Data was collected by documentary method and the analysis of governmental media. The results of the research were 1) By the end of Cold War, non-bureaucratic actors, especially, the political businessmen; Banharn Silpa-archa, Sonthaya Khun Pleum and Thaksin Shinawatra, entered the political positions that seemed to weaken the previous power of bureaucrats. For this reason, the bureaucratic side deployed the coups in 2006 and 2014 as a tool to restore and adjust the balance of power. 2) Under the Constitution 2017 which considered as legacy of Authoritarianism, there were 4 institutions designed to brace the bureaucratic polity. Firstly, the Constitutional Court Judge, that added 2 positions for public servants, one of them was the former military commander who has played significant role in opposition party dissolutions such as Phak Thai Raksa Chat Party, Future Forward Party and the dismissal of PM Srettha Thavisin. Secondly, the election, there were some changes in form, laws, rules and also the formula of calculation of numbers of parliament in order to take advantage over the opposition. Thirdly, the parliament, the senators were chosen by the coup leader and assigned to have right to vote for The Prime Minster that made the highest-number of representatives in the election could not form the government. Lastly, mass media, the government used the power to ban media that criticize the government and also set up, helped and promoted the media channels that affirmed with the authoritarian political party.