“This Constitution was Designed for Us”: The Impacts on the Laws for “Political Party Reform”

Abstract

The three objectives of this research article are to analyze the legal frameworks related to political party reform that occurred in 2017, study whether these legal frameworks could reform Thai political parties, and present guidelines for the amendment of the Thai Constitution. This article is an extension of research on “Reforming Political Parties,” which was conducted before the general election in Thailand in 2019. Legal frameworks were used to analyze the results of the actual political outcome one year after the election. The research findings are as follows: First, the people responsible for drafting the Constitution desired political parties to be political institutions that are deeply rooted in Thai society. However, the stakeholders reflected that this was impossible because current laws do not correspond to reality. Furthermore, when these laws were enforced, problems arose in many areas especially in the Mixed Member apportionment system (MMA). The requirement of political party members, resulting in fragmentation of both opposition and government political parties. Last, to reform political parties, the Constitution must be amended concerning facets of the above issues with the full participation of stakeholders and Thai citizens.