Time to tread carefully

If the Thai-Cambodian border conflict hadn't happened, the main opposition People's Party would have jumped at the chance of contesting a general election if one were called tomorrow.

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However, the border violence may have subdued the PP’s desire for early polls, according to a political source.

As Thailand edges closer to its next general election, given the increasingly precarious state of the government sitting on a razor-thin majority, political narratives are already beginning to crystallise.

The PP, which has long advocated military and monarchy reform, is facing a far tougher political landscape than it might have anticipated a few months ago. Recent flareups along the Thai-Cambodian border have dramatically reshaped public opinion, shifting sentiment towards the armed forces and shrinking the political space for reformist messaging.

Two interrelated reasons explain why the PP will struggle to keep military and monarchy reform at the forefront of its campaign.

The first is the resurgence of public trust in the armed forces, driven by heightened perceptions of external threats and national insecurity. The second is the delicate balancing act that any party must perform when addressing issues related to the monarchy, which, in the current climate of rising nationalism, are even more politically fraught.

For much of the past decade, the PP has built its brand — through its now-dissolved predecessors, the Future Forward Party and later the Move Forward Party — challenging entrenched institutions.

Its calls for reforming the military — reducing its influence in politics, ending conscription, and shifting resources away from defence budgets — have resonated strongly with younger, urban voters frustrated by repeated coups and the military's role in engineering them.