Thailand Calls a Snap Election During a Border War: What It All Means

Joshua Kurlantzick is senior fellow for Southeast Asia and South Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Thailand has called a snap election after its prime minister formally dissolved parliament on Friday. Instead of elections being held in March as planned, they will now be held on February 8, 2026. The snap election was called as interim Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul faced a looming no-confidence vote, led by the People’s Party (PP), which has a significant number of seats in parliament, though not a majority. 

Corruption scandals related to Cambodia have swirled around Anutin’s ministers and put pressure on him since becoming interim prime minister in September through an intra-parliamentary deal. But, as Foreign Policy noted, Anutin may have called the snap election as a way “to avoid impeachment after the PP accused him of reneging on a promise to dissolve parliament within four months and organize a constitutional referendum in exchange for [PP’s] support,” which was necessary since Anutin’s party had nowhere near the number of seats to control parliament. 

The two biggest contenders in the snap election are Anutin’s relatively conservative and pro-military Bhumjaithai Party and the more progressive PP—formerly known as Move Forward. The PP, which is in favor of monarchical reform and military reform that includes the end of conscription, unexpectedly won the most seats in parliament in the 2023 election. The International Institute of Strategic Studies called the victory “a watershed shift in public support,” suggesting that a growing number of Thais, especially younger Thais, were gravitating toward anti-institutional parties and were hungry for the economic and military reform that PP promised. (However, Thailand’s traditional legal, military, and political elites used a variety of dubious tactics to keep PP from building a majority coalition and picking a prime minister.)

A change of political fortune

It appears that the 2023 election could, for now, be the high point of the People’s Party’s gains. It remained possible that PP would build on its 2023 electoral success and win even more seats in this upcoming election, but that was before the military/political establishment created conditions that hampered PP—almost surely on purpose—and the party’s leaders also made several poor decisions. (To be fair, I had earlier argued that PP was building on its 2023 gains, but I no longer believe that.) 

Indeed, Thailand is basically at war with Cambodia again—despite efforts by President Donald Trump and others to mediate—and it appears that the conflict is unlikely to end anytime soon. The Thai armed forces are striking Cambodia with greater intensity than during the conflict earlier in the year and have shown little interest in stopping, even with Trump’s threat of economic consequences. On Monday, they appeared to be striking even farther inside Cambodia. 

Anutin has said, “I no longer care” about U.S.-based trade and tariffs threats, adding, “If we can’t sell to this country [the United States], we’ll find others. How can we put our lives in the hands of one country?”

The border war has driven a rise in nationalist sentiment, which will almost surely help Anutin’s Bhumjaithai Party, a pro-military party, perform better than previously expected. PP, meanwhile, has been put in a tough political position by the revival and intensification of the Cambodia-Thailand border conflict. It is struggling to walk a line between seeming pro-Thailand and maintaining its goals of army and monarchy reforms, which are central to holding its base of supporters. The conflict also has helped boost the popularity of the army and has made the kind of moderate but somewhat reform-minded voters who PP need to expand beyond their base wary of going with the progressive party. 

The current leadership of the People’s Party also has made several mistakes. For one, PP alienated some of their supporters by propping up Anutin as interim prime minister for several months, but it did not see any of the promises it was supposed to get in return fulfilled, like the promised vote on constitutional reform. This made PP appear to be poor at actual governance and deal-making, and it allowed Anutin more time to consolidate power in himself and Bhumjaithai.

Thai media also has repeatedly criticized People’s Party leader Natthaphong Ruengpanyawut, calling him bland. He appears especially so in comparison with the Move Forward leader Pita Limjaroenrat—a skillful grassroots campaigner and social media user whose work allowed PP to shape the 2023 electoral narrative. 

The political effect of the border conflict

It cannot be overstated that the border conflict has shifted Thailand’s political environment, and this may well be by design by Thai elites. Given that the PP’s calls for reform convincingly struck a chord with young, urban voters, it is certainly a strong possibility that the Thai army and possibly the monarchy wanted to restart the border conflict to help pro-military and pro-monarchy parties, including Bhumjaithai. The expectation could be that these parties would then reward the armed forces with whatever budgetary requirements they desired and would do nothing about draconian laws protecting the monarchy. It is worth noting that Anutin’s widely-covered corruption scandals have been overwhelmed by the coverage of the border battle in Southeast Asian media. 

This coverage has also had a secondary effect of humanizing the Thai military. As the Bangkok Post noted after the Thai-Cambodia border conflict began earlier this year, “The recent border clashes with Cambodia have altered public perception. Military units deployed along the frontier are no longer viewed simply as guardians of an outdated power structure, but as front-line defenders of national sovereignty.”

This all has real electoral consequences for PP. As Ken Lohatepanont, one of the best analysts of Thai election trends and polling recently noted: “Except in the [Thai] South, the PP enjoys the highest level of support in every region—and so it is very reasonable to predict at this point that they are on track to win the most party-list seats. But these number disguise some concerning trends. Their polling is certainly not where they want to be if they want to significantly increase their total seat count—indeed, I’m not sure that they are even where the PP needs to keep the same tally of seats as they have currently.”

These dynamics have created an electoral rationale for the Thai military to continue the fight, which means it is unlikely the Cambodia-Thailand border conflict will come to a stop before the Thai election. President Trump has some leverage, but it’s more limited now than it was last summer. Anutin needs to look strong before the election, and he has already repeatedly dismissed Trump. While Trump’s use of tariff relief was a wise and effective means of bringing the two sides to the table in the summer, the scorched earth nature of U.S.-Thai trade negotiations earlier this year has reduced Trump’s economic leverage.

Further, China seems more content now to let the White House try to intervene and fail. Meanwhile, the historic backchannel between Cambodia and Thailand—the personal ties between longtime Thai power broker Thaksin Shinawatra and longtime Cambodian leader Hun Sen—is burnt forever.

With a potentially weakened People’s Party, and Bhumjaithai poised to do relatively well, a series of mid-size and smaller parties will be critical to the coalition that ultimately prevails in parliament. The best bet is that a Bhumjaithai-led coalition will control a majority of seats in the next parliament, not a group led by the People’s Party. 

The country’s smaller and medium-sized parties usually are willing to throw in with whichever of the big winners in the election can offer them the most important ministries and other perks. In the snap election, such swing parties include a much-diminished Pheu Thai and multiple others. 

So, until the Thai election is over, the chances for peace along the Thai-Cambodia border are not high. What’s more, the wave of seeming change that burst out in 2023, and was embraced and encouraged by many young Thais, is unlikely to suddenly die, but it could be some time before it reaches that level again. 

This work represents the views and opinions solely of the author. The Council on Foreign Relations is an independent, nonpartisan membership organization, think tank, and publisher, and takes no institutional positions on matters of policy.