 Hello and welcome to NewsClick. Last year NewsClick had done a feature on the protests by red shirt wearing demonstrators in Bangkok. These protests were since then contained by the then government led by Prime Minister Abhijith Vidajeeva. Yet the victory for the opposition 4th in the recently held elections surely got to do with the support from a large section of the population which included the red shirts for opposition candidate Yinglukshinavatra. We have with us Ms. Chanita Bamford, Deputy Director for the focus of the Global South with whom we shall discuss the election results and more in Thailand. Welcome to NewsClick Ms. Chanita. Hello. Yeah, so the victory for Ms. Yinglukshinavatra. How much of it would you attribute it to the popularity of her brother, former Prime Minister Thakshinshinavatra, or do you think there is more to her popularity as a charismatic woman than just her family heritage? I think it has a lot to do with her brother's popularity, of course, but and she's also quite a newcomer in terms of in terms of public image, like it's it's a new, but maybe that's also one of the good thing because it's a fresh face in anti-politics. So that's another add up for her popular, for the party's popularity. Tell us more about the few Thai party. What were the election promises? How did they distinguish themselves from the ruling Democrats? Well, in fact, the party's platform is not that much different from the Democrats because they're offering also all kinds of freebies like a tablet for all high school students and an increase in minimum wage and plus others. So it's the in terms of policies, there are all the parties basically are following this kind of what we call the populist policy. No virtual difference between both these parties. What do you think was the calling card for the full Thai party? What exactly was the reason that the last section of the population preferred the opposition over the ruling party in that sense? The Taksin-Shinawats party, when it began, Thai-Rank Thai party, basically, which was like about 10 years ago, basically changed the whole political scene in Thailand. Earlier before that, the country was basically run by bureaucrats, government officials, technocrats, right? And the political parties were all only there just to kind of reap the benefit and create some kind of well, making sure that the whole machine runs, which basically is based on all the bureaucrats and technocrats. And when Thai-Rank Thai came in, they really did a good homework. So they were talking to people and finding out what they wanted. And finally, so they had a clear platform, policy platforms at that time, which is the 35 health scheme, universal 35 health scheme, the debt moratorium for the farmers, and the one million baht village fund. And when they got elected, they actually delivered on these, basically these three policies, which meant that all the bureaucrats and the technocrats had to follow the policies of the political party, you know, the ruling party for the first time, you know, for the first time in history. And so that really made the Thai-Rank Thai party and Thai-Rank Thai himself very popular. And so in that sense, the Thai-Rank Thai party now is just carrying on with that kind of policies. During Takshin Srinavathra's rule, the Thailand could also recover from the East Asian financial crisis in a better form. So there were positive memories for Srinavathra's rule. And that's why his sister reaped the benefit of the good opinion of her brother, right in that sense. I think it was more on the policies as well as the kind of nationalism that the party and Takshin Srinavathra has actually generated in fighting against the, you know, paying back all the debt to the IMF and, you know, so that rule could be free and this kind of thing. And so in that sense, that was then. But, you know, what Ying Lak has, that's the legacy basically of the Thai-Rank Thai party. So once the Thai-Rank Thai party got dissolved and then, you know, other parties as you probably might have known already, there are Palang Prachachon and other that came after. And I think it was still riding on the types of policies and Takshin's popularity all the way. But this time what's different is that I think Puratai has did a really good or well-planned campaign and a good choice of the party leader. Even though Ying Lak is a sister of Takshin, but she's, like I said, a fresh face and she, being a woman, she had garnered more votes in that sense, I think, from other men and women. But definitely something new and something to look forward to, you know, having a female prime minister is everybody's kind of, it makes everybody feel a bit like, okay, we'll come some way along the road to democracy. Let's talk about the red shirts. You know, the red shirts protests in some sense last year was directed at the elites and their control over Thailand's political economy. How much do you think would issues concerning the red shirts, that is equity, income, asset distribution, resource rights, etc., would be reflected in this new government's agenda? You see, in fact, when the red shirts were doing this huge protest, their demand, there was only one demand that was to dissolve the parliament, because the parliament, at that time the government was not legitimate in their eyes, because it wasn't elected to be government. It was some kind of parliamentarian kind of reshuffle, so the democrat, you know, took power after the coup, right? And of course, the democrats then is identified by everybody, identifies a democrat with the coup leaders, because, you know, it's, because they were in opposition, opposition to taxes. So there was only one demand, and all this analysis on inequities and stuff, it's the analysis that helps make a lot of people more sympathetic to the red shirts' demand, because they were looking for, they were pointing at double standards and things that have to, things have to be changed, the double standards between how the governments treated the yellow shirts and then how the red shirts got treated, which is different. Definitely, the red shirts managed to get a larger coalition behind them by at least posturing that they were for equity and so on and so forth. They were able to get a lot of support from the working class, the people in Bangkok were actually coming out to cheer them as they were protesting. And I think at that time, there was a lot of sympathy. And everybody, I think, would wanted to see the protest ended, you know, peacefully. And there was a lot of push for dialogue between the government and the red shirts. And because that did not happen, and then instead, you know, there was a force being used and people got killed. And I think, for some part of the population, that was a black mark against the Democrats. And so I think the Ying Lak is now, has got some, you know, support moving into the camp because also they want to see change now, right? Because we've already had the opposite government for a number of years and, you know, nothing, if you're not satisfied, then here's a chance to kind of get some change. And so the Ying Lak's got that as well as to her credit. How about the yellows? What do you expect would be the reaction to this election results now? What people were worried about was that if the purthai is elected, then the yellow shirt might come out to protest again. But thankfully, nothing has happened yet. And if you look at the yellow camp, there are also going different ways. There were part of them were actually contesting as a small political party. And the others were boycotting, basically calling for no votes for the, in this election. So there was already that split that was clear. I think we can safely say now that the yellow shirts have lost the momentum. And now it's going to be, people want to give the chance to purthai and to Ying Lak particularly. How about the army? The generals before the election seem to be a bit hostile. I mean, not openly, but they made some statements saying that they would not prefer to have Ying Lak coming to power. So the fact that this is a democratic election, this is widely popularly seen as free and fair elections. So how would the army respond to the election results in your opinion? Well, I think they have to reconcile to the fact that they are definitely not popular, unpopular, you know, by any means. There would be very few people who support the coup now. And the army definitely has lost a lot of credibility in the past. And of course, that's a good thing. That's one good thing about it, about this election, that at least they have now come to a certain army, you know, to understand that their role is not to, it's not this, you know, it's not to kick out the government. But there's still, of course, there's still a question like what exactly is their role in democracy? And we hope that some lessons have been learned. I think we can end at that. Hopefully lessons have been learned by the military and hopefully they do not interfere in the democratic processes yet again. And hopefully stability continues after these elections. Thank you so much for joining us.