 Thailand has been through a dramatic round of elections over the weekend. The main opposition party, if you can call it so, the move forward party which has pitched itself as a rebel organization, as an anti-establishment organization has emerged as the biggest force in the House of Representatives, which is the lower House of Parliament. Coming second is the Puthai Party, which is also an opposition party. And this means that the pro-military junta, pro-establishment forces which are so powerful in Thailand for so long have actually come a distant third. But this does not mean that these two opposition parties in alliance will be immediately able to follow the government. In fact, there's a very complex process of government formation. We're going to be talking about this process today. We're going to be talking about what the election might signify, might symbolize for the people of Thailand, what lies ahead for them. To talk about all this, we have with us Ketanath Vrabavan, who is an activist with the Thailand Office of Focus on the Global South. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you Prasann. Very happy to be here. It was quick today. Right. So start with, could you maybe just tell us about the government process I was talking about, which is that, OK, the elections were held for the House of Representatives. That's the lower House of Parliament. Now, it does look like the two biggest parties together, that is move forward party and Puthai Party do have a majority in that house. But why are we not sure they may not form the government? Yes, that's totally a big question for us. In the past, you can remember the election in 2019, even though Puthai Party got the majority vote, but they are unable to form the majority government that time. So the pro-establishment and the pro-kunta government try everywhere they can to be in power, to stay in status quo. And this time, it's remained the same that the pro-democracy comes as a consensus of the Thai people. But then we are not so sure due to the legal structure of the previous Kunta government that they lied ahead. And together with the independent, so-called independent organization, but lead by the pro-establishment kind of architecture, they try to perhaps file a way to throw down the pro-democracy movement emerging for progressive agenda. So in these coming days, the Pitha government from move forward parties try every way they can, and together with Puthai Party, they try to make sure that they will try every way to work together to assert people's will in this election. So as you say already that we got the majority vote and they try to form 309, I think, MP seats in order to form the majority government first. All right, so is this going to also maybe take us to the how this process works in terms of, I believe there is also a Senate which together and the two houses together decide the government, but why is it not clear as of yet? Exactly. So the senators, they are in the higher house. So the lower house have the 500 seats and together with the senators, 256, this will form the MPs in Thailand. And by law, it says that the MP with the approval from the house will have 376 representatives voting in supportive to form the government. And for now, for the past election, the senators show every way that they can that they will not support any prime minister that come from the pro-democracy side. So this time again, because they are still in power, the senators, I think they clearly showed a way that they would not in any way support the person who have the progressive stance. And they try every way to frame that pro-democracy government equal the one who would try to throw down the monarchy and try to establish kind of another turbulence in the country. So again, the senator will not be very much supportive of people's bill and that very much our concern for now, how Thailand with majority votes from the people can form the pro-democracy government even though we have the slight political, maybe earthquake for pro-democracy when a consensus of Thai people already. Right, I believe the senators were all appointed by the previous military junta government if I'm not mistaken as well. Exactly, exactly. So this is, I would say the legal architecture previously lied for the status quo to remain in power. And I'm not sure if I can say it's lucky but then the clause in the constitution, there will be out of power by next year in May. So that means that in any chance, we have pretty much a hope for the people to move forward to mobilize for democracy. Yeah, without the senator in power. Right, so let's go a bit in detail into the results. We do know, for instance, that the largest party is the move forward party. And like I said, it has pitched itself as it is appealed on the issues of anti-military sentiment. It has tapped into that. It has talked about, it has actually recruited a lot of people who were part of the anti-monarchy protests that took place over the past couple of years. So how did it pitch itself to people in Thailand and what would its key agenda points? For the results first, move forward party got 153 if I'm not mistaken, seats in the climate at the moment as for the provisional results and Kua Tai got 141 seats in the climate. And another thing that observers in Thailand see is that even though they got taken the seats, but the percentage of people vote for them is still slightly not a majority. For example, out of 39 million votes come out, I think 11 million votes for future move forward party. So that means that for the district voters, 25% go to move forward party and 36 go to the party list candidates. So that's mean if move forward party try to advocate for very progressive issues, for example, the very sensitive one on monarchy reform, it means that they would need to aware that even though they got very slight, like very earthquake of victory, but then maybe some people still keeping up to understand their issues. So that means that there's a lot of communication on the policies that move forward party need to taken forward after the election. And yeah, as for the agenda they try to bring in, not only the Les Mages reform, they also try to put the military out of politics. So all the big issues are there on the table and some coalition parties may not totally agree with all of them. I would say that that's also a rough road ahead for them internally and externally in order to form government. Right, but also to sort of understand their agenda a bit further in terms of many of the demands that are often raised by people's movements and organizations, for instance, we know that intercept the question of inequality, the question of withdrawal of some of the reforms that we talk about. Has the party taken a stand on some of these long life, for instance, economic policies? And I think they make sure that their policy are not populist policy. They try to argue that move forward party goes for the social welfare policy. And for example, they try to guarantee some standard minimum welfare policy for each sectors, for the newborn babies, for the aging persons in Thailand, for example. And in every debate that goes to, they try to back up with research, how inflation makes the calculation, why Thailand need to step up every year, for example, in order to increase minimum wages and how they try to light up for the standard income for example. So I think their argument will say that what Thailand needs is not the populist policy anymore, but some kind of standard in order to guarantee social welfare, not just the social safety net. That's interesting. So let's look at the other side of the picture. We know that the opposition suffered quite a huge blow. Prime Minister Prayu Chan Ocha himself, his party itself, quite performing quite poorly. So what do you think led to these right wing forces actually suffering such a huge defeat because I believe the highest scoring, the highest right wing parties around 70 seats is something from Romney Stakin. That's a very important question. And I think we try to monitor very well how the reaction from their sides are going on. But at the moment, what we can see clearly that the election results can show that maybe people will not totally agree with all the progressive agenda on the table. What the consensus we have at the moment is that people are tired of the old regime and the old gods in the Thailand politics for eight years. So I think in some way, people would not have that kind of maybe a radical feeling of that this new agenda on the table is not for them. I think they will try to see here what are they offering for the people. And it's just clearly for them that people are open to more democratic, more inclusive kind of process. And yesterday, I think Pita, the prime minister candidate at the moment from Move Forward Party, he tried to be very clear that Thailand, yeah, we are on the concurring of conflicts for a long time. And he's understand that everything can be resolved peacefully. And one of the things that people can do is to transmit this through the parliamentary process. So that can be one thing that people can make sure. However, the proposal can be transmitted to the parliamentary processes. And finally, just to sort of also go through quickly what seemed to be the demands of the progressive sectors of society, so to speak, the trade unions, the farmers movements. At this point, what is their approach to the world? How are they seeing the election? What are the kind of issues they think need to be addressed first? I think one thing that Move Forward tried to make sure all the time is that they try to also invite representatives from this sector to be on the party itself, to represent themselves, to voice their demands. And I think they pretty welcome the victory of Move Forward Party. Yeah, we can see, I think on number 405, party list candidate, he directly come from the trade union representative. And also, I think we have many supporters from peasant movement that they announce, I think officially to endorse Move Forward and future Forward even before the position, the agenda. And then I think people from the activist sectors regards Move Forward Party as some kind of political, yeah, their political movement, yeah, for them to be able to fit in their demands directly. So I think they're pretty welcome and they also endorse other progressive party, even though they didn't get seat, for example, the commoner party that originally came from the Northeast. Yeah, I think people are looking forward for the multi-party system in Thailand and then we cannot, yeah, tolerate any more un-democratic processes. So we look forward into more meaningful participation. And then I think Move Forward would not only be the party or only be the single party for democracy in the future. There will be more, I think detailed party offering many demands for the people in the future very soon. Thank you so much for talking to us, giving us a quick and very precise update of what's happening in Thailand. It's really a complicated picture. Like you said, the first question itself is who's going to form the government that itself determines a lot of things. If, you know, if future, if Move Forward Party comes to power, what its positions are on a lot of issues still remains very unclear again, as you said. Nonetheless, you know, some interesting times ahead. So to speak, thank you so much for talking to us. Thank you so much, Prasad. And that's all we have time for today. Keep watching People's Dispatch.