In 1997 Thailand adopted a new constitution which brought about sweeping changes to its political and electoral landscape. Reforms included the creation of an autonomous Electoral Commission to oversee and administer elections, new rules governing the relationship between the members of Parliament and the Cabinet, and the creation of an elected Senate—the first ever in Thailand. The constitution also replaced the Block Vote (BV) electoral system that had been in place for most of Thailand’s electoral history with a Parallel system made up of FPTP and List PR elements.
Prior to the 1997 reforms Thailand used the BV system to elect the House of Representatives. The Senate was entirely appointed. The country’s electoral districts were broken down into one-, two- and three-seat districts, with most districts having more than one seat. Seats were allocated by province in proportion to population. Voters cast their votes for candidates rather than parties, and were allowed to vote for as many candidates as there were seats in a district. They could not cast all their votes for a single candidate but could split their votes between candidates from different parties. They could also partially abstain by not casting all their available votes. Parties were required to field a full team of candidates for any district they wished to contest (for example, three candidates in a three-seat district). Seats were awarded to the one, two or three candidates who got the most votes on the basis of the plurality rule.
The BV system in Thailand had at least two major implications for the party system. These multi-seat districts had tended to produce multiple parties in each district, which in turn had contributed to the presence of a large number of parties in the House. The average effective number of national parties between 1975 and 1996 was more than six. Not surprisingly, no party ever commanded a majority, making large, multiparty coalition governments necessary. These coalition governments were generally indecisive and short-lived. Reformers hoped that by changing the electoral system they could bring about a reduction in the number of parties and a reduction in government inaction and instability.
Second, the system pitted candidates from the same party against one another in the same district. Although each party nominated a team of candidates, they often tended to campaign against each other rather than trying to get voters to support all of the party team with all of their votes. This intra-party competition undermined the value of party labels to candidates and voters and contributed to making the parties factionalized and incohesive. One reflection of this was the rampant party-switching prior to every election, with attendant allegations of money politics. Intra-party competition, the weakness of party labels and the relatively small districts also encouraged politicians to cultivate and respond to relatively narrow constituencies. During election campaigns vote-buying helped candidates build personal constituencies. In office politicians focused on providing ‘pork’ and particularistic goods and services to their constituencies, often to the neglect of broader policy concerns and thus to the coherence and consistency of government policy. The drafters of the 1997 constitution hoped that through electoral reform they could encourage the development of party cohesion and meaningful party labels, and bolster the incentives of candidates and politicians to respond to broad, national constituencies.
In 1996 the House of Representatives, responding to long-simmering demands from within civil society for political reform, organized a Constitutional Drafting Assembly (CDA). A year later, after a widespread popular consultation and in the midst of a severe economic crisis that quickly escalated into a political crisis, the CDA submitted and the House approved a new constitution. The cornerstones of this new constitution were an elected Senate and an overhauled system for electing the House of Representatives. Gone is the Block Vote system for the House. Following a growing trend, the drafters of the constitution established a Parallel electoral system in Thailand. Four hundred single-member districts replaced Thailand’s multi-member districts. In these districts voters cast a single vote for their preferred candidate. The 1997 constitution also created a second tier of 100 seats elected from a single nationwide district by PR. A party must reach a threshold of at least 5 per cent of the party list votes in order to be eligible for seats in this tier. Each party is required to submit a list of candidates for voters to consider, and voters cast two votes, one for a district representative and one for a party list. Candidates must choose between running in a district and running on the party list. The two tiers are not linked: a party’s seats in one tier are not in any way dependent on the number of seats it has in the other tier.
The 1997 constitution also provided for an elected Senate, the first in Thailand’s history. Two hundred senators are elected using the SNTV system. The electoral districts range from one to 18 seats in size. The Thai version of SNTV also has an added twist. Constitutional reformers wanted to create a Senate that would remain above the messy partisan fray. As a result, senators are constitutionally prohibited from belonging to a political party and are not allowed to campaign for election.
What were the results of these constitutional reforms? As discussed above, one of the drafters’ chief goals was to reduce the number of parties in Thailand—hence the move to single-member districts and the 5 per cent electoral threshold in the party list tier. It appears that this goal has largely been achieved. In the 2001 election for the House of Representatives, the effective number of parties in the legislature fell dramatically from an average of 6.2 before 1997 to 3.1, reflecting both a decline in the number of parties contesting each single-member district and better coordination of parties between districts. For the first time since 1957 a single party, the newly formed Thai Rak Thai party, nearly captured a majority of the seats. It later gained a majority after a smaller party disbanded and joined its ranks.
The drafters also hoped that adding a national party list tier and doing away with intra-party competition would encourage voters and candidates to focus more on party policy positions regarding national issues. This in fact began to occur in the 2001 election. For the first time in recent Thai electoral history, political parties, led chiefly by the Thai Rak Thai party, put significant effort into developing coordinated party-centred electoral strategies. Parties began to differentiate themselves in terms of their policy platforms and in some cases made those differences an important campaign issue.
However, there are reasons to be somewhat cautious in assessing the emerging changes in the Thai party system. First, the shift towards party-centred strategies was primarily confined to the campaign for party list seats, while contests in the 400 single-member districts generally remained candidate-centred affairs. This is certainly no surprise given the electoral system: single-member districts still generate incentives to cultivate personal support networks (although it appears somewhat less than under the Block Vote system). Second, the new electoral system has brought about a dramatic reduction in the average number of votes needed to win a seat. This is the combined effect of adding more seats to the legislature and switching from Block Vote to single-member districts. This weakens the incentives to abandon personal strategies: the smaller the number of votes required to be elected, the more likely it is that individual candidates will employ personal strategies. Finally, the presence of a non-partisan Senate, elected by SNTV, undermines somewhat the attempt to create a more party-oriented electorate.
Obviously, any assessment of the consequences of the 1997 reforms must still be tempered. With only limited data available, it is not possible to determine whether the outcomes of the 2001 and 2005 elections represent new trends or are a reflection of the ‘one-off ’ personality of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, the leader of Thai Rak Thai. Nonetheless the 2001 and 2005 House elections already mark Thailand as an interesting case study of the consequences (sometimes unintended) of electoral system reform.
