Democratic elections and the military returns Elections were held in January 1946. These were the first elections in which political parties were legal, and Pridi's People's Party and its allies won a majority. In March 1946 Pridi became Siam's first democratically elected prime minister. In 1946, after he agreed to hand back the Indochinese territories occupied in 1941 as the price for admission to the
United Nations, all wartime claims against Siam were dropped and substantial US aid was received. In December 1945, the young king
Ananda Mahidol had returned to Siam from Europe, but in June 1946 he was found shot dead in his bed, under mysterious circumstances. Three palace servants were tried and executed for his murder, although there are significant doubts as to their guilt and the case remains both murky and a highly sensitive topic in Thailand today. The king was succeeded by his younger brother,
Bhumibol Adulyadej. In August Pridi was forced to resign amid suspicion that he had been involved in the regicide. Without his leadership, the civilian government foundered, and in November 1947 the army, its confidence restored after the debacle of 1945,
seized power. After an interim Khuang-headed government, in April 1948 the
army brought Phibun back from exile and made him prime minister. Pridi, in turn, was driven into exile, eventually settling in
Beijing as a guest of the
PRC.
Cold War (1947–1989) Phibun's return to power coincided with the onset of the
Cold War and the establishment of a communist regime in
North Vietnam. He soon won the support of the United Nations. Once again political opponents were arrested and tried, and some were executed. During this time, several of the key figures in the wartime Free Thai underground, including Thawin Udom, Thawi Thawethikul, Chan Bunnak, and Tiang Sirikhanth, were eliminated in extra-legal fashion by the Thai police, run by Phibun's ruthless associate
Phao Sriyanond. There were attempted counter-coups by Pridi supporters in 1948, 1949, and 1951, the second leading to heavy fighting between the army and navy before Phibun emerged victorious. In the navy's 1951 attempt, popularly known as the
Manhattan Coup, Phibun was nearly killed when the ship where he was held hostage was bombed by the pro-government air force. Although nominally a constitutional monarchy, Thailand was ruled by a series of military governments, most prominently led by Phibun, interspersed with brief periods of democracy. Thailand
took part in the
Korean War.
Communist Party of Thailand guerrilla forces operated inside the country from the early-1960s to 1987. They included 12,000 full-time fighters at the peak of movement, but never posed a serious threat to the state. By 1955 Phibun was losing his leading position in the army to younger rivals led by Field Marshal
Sarit Thanarat and General
Thanom Kittikachorn, the Sarit's army staged a bloodless coup on 17 September 1957, ending Phibun's career for good. The coup beginning a long tradition of US-backed military regimes in Thailand. Thanom became prime minister until 1958, then yielded his place to Sarit, the real head of the regime. Sarit held power until his death in 1963, when Thanom again took the lead.
The rise of American influence In 1948 the government of Phibun Songkhram declared that Thailand would adopt an anti-communist stance in the emerging
Cold War. Around the same time the United States began to see Thailand as an important bastion against communism in Asia and sought ways to support the government. A State Department policy statement in 1950 noted that 'effective resistance to Communism must be based on widespread public support within the country' and set out that Thailand would receive a payment of $10,000,000 in aid. In 1950 Thailand sent troops to the Korean War and in 1954 Thailand joined the South East Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO). US financial and technical support greatly benefited the armed forces. During the
First Indochina War, the United States increasingly focused on securing Thailand's long term status as an anti-communist state through psychological programs. In September 1953, a key architect of the CIA, William Donovan was sent to Thailand to win the support of Thailand's nationalist elite. This involved a large indoctrination campaign aimed at convincing Thailand's bureaucracy that their country's interests aligned with those of the US. Through the 1950s American influence in Thailand through the decade as its status as a bastion against Communism was entrenched. Some of the most prominent early visitors were academics from the expanding area studies campuses in the United States. Most notable was Cornell University which established the Bang Chan project in a rural area north of Bangkok. For decades, the site was a key site for visiting American scholars who came to conduct ethnographic studies of the Thai people.
Indochina wars and communist insurgency of Thailand visited the U.S. Army's 27th Infantry "Wolfhounds" near Korat, Thailand in 1962. Here, Queen Sirikit visited with Colonel
William A. Mckean, Commander of the 27th, and U.S. Ambassador to Thailand,
Kenneth T. Young Jr. The U.S. forces in Thailand are used to assist as instructors and advisors. The regimes of Sarit and Thanom were strongly supported by the US. Thailand had formally become a US ally in 1954 with the formation of the
SEATO. While the war in Indochina was being fought between the Vietnamese and the French, Thailand (disliking both equally) stayed aloof, but once it became a war between the US and the Vietnamese communists, Thailand committed itself strongly to the US side, concluding a secret agreement with the US in 1961, sending troops to Vietnam and Laos, and allowing the US to use
airbases in the east of the country to conduct its bombing war against North Vietnam. The Vietnamese retaliated by supporting the
Communist Party of Thailand's insurgency in the north, northeast, and sometimes in the south, where guerrillas co-operated with local discontented Muslims. In the postwar period, Thailand had close relations with the US, which it saw as a protector from communist revolutions in neighbouring countries. The Seventh and Thirteenth US Air Forces were headquartered at
Udon Royal Thai Air Force Base. Agent Orange, a herbicide and
defoliant chemical used by the U.S. military as part of its herbicidal warfare program,
Operation Ranch Hand, was tested by the United States in Thailand during the war in Southeast Asia. Buried drums were uncovered and confirmed to be Agent Orange in 1999. Workers who uncovered the drums fell ill while upgrading the airport near
Hua Hin District, 100 km south of Bangkok. US Vietnam-era veterans whose service involved duty on or near the perimeters of military bases in Thailand anytime between 28 February 1961, and 7 May 1975, may have been exposed to herbicides and may qualify for VA benefits. A declassified US Department of Defense report written in 1973 suggests that there was a significant use of herbicides on the fenced-in perimeters of military bases in Thailand to remove foliage that provided cover for enemy forces. Between 1961 and 1965, insurgents carried out 17 political assassinations. They avoided full scale guerrilla warfare until the summer of 1965, when militants began engaging Thai security forces. A total of 13 clashes were recorded during that period. The insurgency spread to other parts of Thailand in 1966, although 90 percent of insurgency-related incidents occurred in the northeast of the country. The communist-led insurgents were of paramount concern to the Thai security forces for several decades. , Bangkok The Vietnam War hastened the modernisation and Westernisation of Thai society. The American presence and the exposure to Western culture that came with it had an effect on almost every aspect of Thai life. Before the late 1960s, full access to Western culture was limited to a highly educated elite in society, but the Vietnam War brought the outside world face to face with large segments of the Thai society as never before. With US dollars pumping up the economy, the service, transportation, and construction industries grew phenomenally as did
drug abuse and
prostitution, which using Thailand as a "
Rest and Recreation" facility by US forces. The traditional rural family unit was broken down as more and more rural Thais moved to the city to find new jobs. This led to a clash of cultures as Thais were exposed to Western ideas about fashion, music, values, and moral standards. The population began to grow explosively as the standard of living rose, and a flood of people began to move from the villages to the cities, and above all to Bangkok. Thailand had 30 million people in 1965, while by the end of the 20th century the population had doubled. Bangkok's population had grown tenfold since 1945 and had tripled since 1970. Educational opportunities and exposure to mass media increased during the Vietnam War years. Bright university students learned more about ideas related to Thailand's economic and political systems, resulting in a revival of student activism. The Vietnam War period also saw the growth of the Thai middle class which gradually developed its own identity and consciousness. Economic development did not bring prosperity to all. During the 1960s many of the rural poor felt increasingly dissatisfied with their condition in society and disillusioned by their treatment by the central government in Bangkok. Efforts by the Thai government to develop poor rural regions often did not have the desired effect in that they contributed to the farmers' awareness of how bad off they really were. It was not always the poorest of the poor who joined the anti-government insurgency. Increased government presence in the rural villages did little to improve the situation. Villagers became subject to increased military and police harassment and bureaucratic corruption. Villagers often felt betrayed when government promises of development were frequently not fulfilled. By the early 1970s rural discontent had manifested itself into a peasant's activist movement. In 1972, hundreds of peasants, perhaps more than 3,000, suspected of supporting the communist rebellion, were massacred by the armed forces in Phattalung province in southern Thailand. Until then, communist suspects arrested by the army were usually shot and their bodies left behind. This time, the "red barrel" method was introduced to eliminate any possible evidence. Suspects were beaten into semi-consciousness before being thrown into barrels containing gasoline and burned alive.
The 1973 democracy movement in Bangkok, built in 1940 to commemorate the end of the
absolute monarchy in 1932, was the scene of massive demonstrations in 1973, 1976, 1992 and 2010. With the dissatisfaction of pro-US policies of Military administration that allowed the US forces for using the country as a military base, the high rate of prostitution problems, the freedom of press and speech were limited and influx of the corruption that lead to inequality of social classes. Student demonstrations had started in 1968 and grew in size and numbers in the early 1970s despite the continued ban on political meetings. In June 1973, nine
Ramkhamhaeng University students were expelled for publishing an article in a student newspaper that was critical of the government. Shortly after, thousands of students held a protest at the
Democracy Monument demanding the re-enrolment of the nine students. The government ordered the universities to shut, but shortly afterwards allowed the students to be re-enrolled. In October another 13 students were arrested on charges of conspiracy to overthrow the government. This time the student protesters were joined by workers, businessmen, and other ordinary citizens. The demonstrations swelled to several hundred thousand and the issue broadened from the release of the arrested students to demands for a new constitution and the replacement of the current government. On 13 October, the government released the detainees. Leaders of the demonstrations, among them
Seksan Prasertkul, called off the march in accordance with the wishes of the king who was publicly against the democracy movement. In a speech to graduating students, he criticised the pro-democracy movement by telling students to concentrate on their studies and leave politics to their elders [military government]. As the crowds were breaking up the next day (14 October), many students found themselves unable to leave because the police blocked the southern route to
Rajavithi Road. Cornered and overwhelmed by the hostile crowd, the police responded with teargas and gunfire. The military was called in, and tanks rolled down
Ratchadamnoen Avenue and helicopters fired down at
Thammasat University. A number of students commandeered buses and fire engines in an attempt to halt the progress of the tanks by ramming into them. With chaos on the streets, King
Bhumibol opened the gates of
Chitralada Palace to the students who were being gunned down by the army. Despite orders from Thanom that the military action be intensified, army commander
Kris Sivara had the army withdrawn from the streets. The king condemned the government's inability to handle the demonstrations and ordered Thanom, Praphas, and Narong to leave the country, and notably condemned the students' supposed role as well. At 18:10 Field Marshal Thanom Kittikachorn resigned from his post as prime minister. An hour later, the king appeared on national television, asking for calm, and announcing that Field Marshal Thanom Kittikachorn had been replaced with Dr.
Sanya Dharmasakti, a respected law professor, as prime minister. The 1973 Uprising brought about the most free era in Thai recent history, called an "age when democracy blossomed" and a "democratic experiment," which ended in the
Thammasat University massacre and a coup on 6 October 1976.
Democratisation and setbacks Post-1973 has been marked by a struggle to define the political contours of the state. It was won by the king and General
Prem Tinsulanonda, who favoured a monarchial constitutional order. The post-1973 years have seen a difficult and sometimes bloody transition from military to civilian rule, with several reversals along the way. The revolution of 1973 inaugurated a brief, unstable period of democracy, with
military rule being reimposed after the
6 October 1976 Massacre. For most of the 1980s, Thailand was ruled by
Prem Tinsulanonda, a democratically inclined strongman who restored parliamentary politics. Thereafter the country remained a democracy apart from a brief period of military rule from the
1991 Thai coup d'état for two years.
Shinawatra administration The populist
Thai Rak Thai party, led by
billionaire businessman
Thaksin Shinawatra, was elected after a landslide electoral victory in 2001. Shinawatra was popular with the urban, suburban, and rural poor for his populist social programs. His rule came under attack from elites who saw danger in his "parliamentary dictatorship". In mid-2005,
Sondhi Limthongkul, a well-known media tycoon, became the foremost Thaksin critic. Eventually, Sondhi and his allies developed the movement into a mass protest and later unified under the name of
People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD). On 19 September 2006, after the dissolution of parliament, Thaksin became head of a provisional government. While he was in New York for a meeting of the UN, Army Commander-in-Chief Lieutenant General
Sonthi Boonyaratglin launched the bloodless
September 2006 Thailand military coup d'état supported by anti-Thaksin elements in civil society and the
Democrat Party. A general election on 23 December 2007 restored a civilian government, led by
Samak Sundaravej of the
People's Power Party, as a successor to Thai Rak Thai.
2006 coup d'état Without meeting much resistance, a
military junta overthrew the interim government of
Thaksin Shinawatra on 19 September 2006. The
junta abrogated the constitution, dissolved Parliament and the Constitutional Court, detained and later removed several members of the government, declared
martial law, and appointed one of the king's Privy Counselors, General
Surayud Chulanont, as the Prime Minister. On 1 October 2006, Surayud Chulanont, the former head of Thailand's army, was sworn in as interim prime minister. The junta later wrote a highly abbreviated
interim constitution and appointed a panel to draft a new permanent constitution. The junta also appointed a 250-member legislature, called by some critics a "chamber of generals" while others claimed that it lacks representatives from the poor majority. In this interim constitution draft, the head of the junta was allowed to remove the prime minister at any time. The legislature was not allowed to hold a vote of confidence against the cabinet and the public was not allowed to file comments on bills. This interim constitution was later surpassed by
the permanent constitution on 24 August 2007. Martial law was partially revoked in January 2007. The ban on political activities was lifted in July 2007, following the
30 May dissolution of the
Thai Rak Thai party. The new constitution was approved by referendum on 19 August, which led to a return to a
democratic general election on 23 December 2007.
2008–2010 political crisis , Yellow Shirts, rally on
Sukhumvit Road in 2008. , Red Shirts, protest on
Ratchaprasong intersection in 2010. The
People's Power Party (Thailand) (PPP), led by
Samak Sundaravej formed a government with five smaller parties. Following several court rulings against him in a variety of scandals, and surviving a vote of no confidence, and protesters blockading government buildings and airports, in September 2008, Sundaravej was found guilty of conflict of interest by the
Constitutional Court of Thailand (due to being host of a TV cooking program), and thus, ended his term in office. He was replaced by PPP member
Somchai Wongsawat. As of October 2008, Wongsawat was unable to gain access to his offices, which were occupied by protesters from the
People's Alliance for Democracy. On 2 December 2008, Thailand's Constitutional Court in a highly controversial ruling found the Peoples Power Party (PPP) guilty of electoral fraud, which led to the dissolution of the party according to the law. It was later alleged in media reports that at least one member of the judiciary had a telephone conversation with officials working for the Office of the Privy Council and one other person. The phone call was taped and has since circulated on the Internet. In it, the callers discuss finding a way to ensure the ruling PPP party would be disbanded. Accusations of judicial interference were levelled in the media but the recorded call was dismissed as a hoax. However, in June 2010, supporters of the eventually disbanded PPP were charged with tapping a judge's phone. Immediately following what many media described as a "judicial coup", a senior member of the armed forces met with factions of the governing coalition to get their members to join the opposition and the
Democrat Party was able to form a government, a first for the party since 2001. The leader of the Democrat Party, and former leader of the opposition,
Abhisit Vejjajiva was appointed and sworn in as the 27th
Prime Minister, together with a new cabinet, on 17 December 2008. In April 2009, protests by the
National United Front of Democracy Against Dictatorship (UDD, or "
Red Shirts") forced the cancellation of the
Fourth East Asia Summit after protesters stormed the Royal Cliff Hotel venue in Pattaya, smashing the glass doors of the venue to gain entry, and a blockade prevented the Chinese premier at the time,
Wen Jiabao, from attending. About a year later, a set of new
Red Shirts protests resulted in 87 deaths (mostly civilian and some military) and 1,378 injured. When the army tried to disperse protesters on 10 April 2010, the army was met with automatic gunfire, grenades, and fire bombs from an opposition faction in the army. This resulted in the army returning fire with rubber bullets and some live ammunition. During the time of the Red Shirt protests against the government, there were numerous grenade and bomb attacks against government offices and the homes of government officials. Gas grenades were fired at Yellow Shirt protesters who were protesting against the Red Shirts and in favour of the government, by unknown gunmen killing one pro-government protester, the government stated that the Red Shirts were firing the weapons at civilians. Red Shirts continued to hold a position in the business district of Bangkok and it was shut down for several weeks. On 3 July 2011, the opposition
Pheu Thai Party, led by
Yingluck Shinawatra (the youngest sister of Thaksin Shinawatra), won the
general election by a landslide (265 seats in the
House of Representatives, out of 500). She had never previously been involved in politics, Pheu Thai campaigning for her with the slogan "Thaksin thinks, Pheu Thai acts". Yingluck was the nation's first female prime minister and her role was officially endorsed in a ceremony presided over by King Bhumibol Adulyadej. The Pheu Thai Party is a continuation of Thaksin's Thai Rak Thai party.
2013–2014 political crisis Protests recommenced in late 2013, as a broad alliance of protesters, led by former opposition deputy leader
Suthep Thaugsuban, demanded an end to the Thaksin regime. A blanket amnesty for people involved in the 2010 protests, altered at the last minute to include all political crimes, including all convictions against Thaksin, triggered a mass show of discontent, with numbers variously estimated between 98,500 (the police) and 400,000 (an aerial photo survey done by the
Bangkok Post), taking to the streets. The Senate was urged to reject the bill to quell the reaction, but the measure failed. A newly named group, the
People's Democratic Reform Committee (PDRC) along with allied groups, escalated the pressure, with the opposition Democrat party resigning en masse to create a parliamentary vacuum. Protesters demand variously evolved as the movement's numbers grew, extending a number of deadlines and demands that became increasingly unreasonable or unrealistic, yet attracting a groundswell of support. They called for the establishment of an indirectly elected "people's council", in place of Yingluck's government, that would cleanse Thai politics and eradicate the Thaksin regime. In response to the protests, Yingluck dissolved parliament on 9 December 2013 and proposed a new election for 2 February 2014, a date that was later approved by the election commission. The PDRC insisted that the prime minister stand down within 24 hours, regardless of her actions, with 160,000 protesters in attendance at Government House on 9 December. Yingluck insisted that she would continue her duties until
the scheduled election in February 2014, urging the protesters to accept her proposal: "Now that the government has dissolved parliament, I ask that you stop protesting and that all sides work towards elections. I have backed down to the point where I don't know how to back down any further." In response to the Electoral Commission (EC)'s registration process for party-list candidates—for the scheduled election in February 2014—anti-government protesters marched to the Thai-Japanese sports stadium, the venue of the registration process, on 22 December 2013. Suthep and the PDRC led the protest, which security forces claimed that approximately 270,000 protesters joined. Yingluck and the Pheu Thai Party reiterated their election plan and anticipated presenting a list of 125 party-list candidates to the EC. On 7 May 2014, the Constitutional Court ruled that Yingluck would have to step down as the prime minister as she was deemed to have abused her power in transferring a high-level government official. On 21 August 2014 she was replaced by army chief General
Prayut Chan-o-cha.
2014 coup d'état .|link=Special:FilePath/2014_0526_Thailand_coup_Chang_Phueak_Gate_Chiang_Mai_02.jpg , the coup leader On 20 May 2014 the Thai army declared martial law and began to deploy troops in the capital, denying that it was a coup attempt. On 22 May, the army admitted that it was a coup and that it was taking control of the country and suspending the country's constitution. On the same day, the military imposed a curfew between the hours of 22:00–05:00, ordering citizens and visitors to remain indoors during this period. On 21 August 2014 the
National Assembly of Thailand elected the army chief, General
Prayut Chan-o-cha, as prime minister. Martial law was declared formally ended on 1 April 2015. "Uniformed or ex-military men have led Thailand for 55 of the 83 years since absolute monarchy was overthrown in 1932,..." observed one journalist in 2015. The rise of fascism in Thailand began around the coup, first coined by James Taylor of University of Adelaide in 2011, after the
junta took control, academics and political commentators started to identify a political system by fascism. Pithaya Pookaman and James Taylor called it 'New Right' consisting of ultraconservatives, reactionaries, semi-fascists, pseudo-intellectuals and former leftists. John Draper, an academic and political commentator, noted that the rise of fascism in Thailand began in 2014. The King's sufficient economy was mentioned that it serves as one of the ideological foundations of the military regime, and reminiscent of
fascist regimes in Europe in the 1930s.
Military Junta (2014–2019) The ruling junta led by Prayuth Chan-o-cha promised to hold new elections, but wanted to enact a new constitution before the elections were held. An initial draft constitution was rejected by government officials in 2015. A national
referendum, the first since the 2014 coup, on a newly drafted constitution was held on 7 August 2016. There was a 55% turnout of which around 61% voted in favour of the constitution. Under the new constitution an unelected person other than a member of parliament can be appointed as Prime Minister, which would open the post to a military official. The new constitution also gives the National Council for Peace and Order the authority to make all the appointments to the 250-member Senate in the next government. == Vajiralongkorn period (2016–present) ==