Democrats gathering data nationwide to pinpoint causes of devastating loss
Thailand’s oldest political party is in the midst of intensive soul searching following its devastating loss in the May 14 general election, Democrat spokesman Ramet Rattanachaweng said on Saturday.
The Democrat Party has tasked each of its 25 election winners and all of its losing candidates, as well as its provincial offices, to gather any and all information that can help explain why they lost so much ground.
The information collected will be analysed to determine why the party lost seats in so many provinces.
“The facts gathered will be presented to the party’s new executive board,” Ramet told a press conference at the party’s Bangkok headquarters.
The Democrats won 25 MP seats – 22 from constituencies and three from the party-list system, according to unofficial results from the Election Commission.
That was less than half of the 53 seats they won in the 2019 election: 33 from constituencies and 20 from the party-list system.
Even the 2019 election was a stunning drop from the 165 House seats the Democrats won in the December 2007 general election.
The Democrats even lost ground in their last remaining stronghold – the South – in the May 14 vote.
The party also failed to win a single constituency seat in Bangkok for the second election in a row. In prior elections, it had been the dominant party in the capital.
Ramet also dismissed as groundless a rumour that the Democrats were planning to create a rival coalition that would keep both the Move Forward and United Thai Nation parties in the opposition. According to the rumour, this alleged plan was hatched during a “secret meeting” at a golf course.
“Nobody in the Democrat Party was involved in such a rumoured plot. Such inaccurate reports have caused damage to the Democrat Party,” the spokesman said.
He also denied that a deal was being cut between the Democrats and the Pheu Thai Party – which has formed a new coalition with election winner Move Forward – to select a new speaker of the House of Representatives.
Any agreement between the Democrats and other parties must be endorsed by the party’s executive board, Ramet said.
The nomination of a new House speaker should be a decision for the political parties involved in the formation of a new coalition government, he added, stressing: “It has nothing to do with the Democrat Party.”
