PRO-THAKSIN PARTY TRYING TO ASSEMBLE COALITION

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 BANGKOK 006280

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

NSC FOR PHU

E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/27/2017
TAGS: PGOV PHUM KDEM TH
SUBJECT: PRO-THAKSIN PARTY TRYING TO ASSEMBLE COALITION
GOVERNMENT

REF: A. BANGKOK 6238 (NORTHEASTERN SITUATION)


B. BANGKOK 6170 (PRASONG'S VIEWS)

C. BANGKOK 6069 (PRACHAI CONVICTED)

BANGKOK 00006280 001.2 OF 003


Classified By: Charge d'Affaires James F. Entwistle, reason: 1.4 (b) an
d (d).

SUMMARY
--------------


1. (C) The pro-Thaksin People's Power Party (PPP) is working
to draw sufficient support from other parties to form a
government. There are enough small and medium size political
parties that none of them can assert it holds the definitive
swing vote. We have not yet seen any strong indication that
military or interim government officials are exerting
significant influence on inter-party negotiations. End
Summary.

NO SINGLE SWING VOTE
--------------


2. (SBU) As the pro-Thaksin People's Power Party (PPP)
negotiates with potential partners to form a government, it
has a healthy range of options. If the current preliminary
results stand, PPP, needing the support of nine other House
members in addition to its own 232, will have the necessary
votes to form a government if it wins the support of any of
three small or medium size parties: Chart Thai (37 seats),
Motherland (25 seats),or Ruam Jai Thai Chart Pattana (nine
seats). Alternatively, PPP would command majority support in
the House if it pulls together the two smallest parties,
Matchima (seven seats) and Pracharaj (five seats).


3. (C) Even if PPP finds itself unable to attract formal
coalition partners, PPP would have the option of luring
defectors from other parties in order to win majority support
for a resolution nominating its Party Leader, Samak
Sundaravej, as Prime Minister. According to the 2007
Constitution, House members are not subject to sanction if
they deviate from their parties' policies when electing the
Prime Minister. PPP is in a good position to lure such
support; it is widely perceived as having substantial funds
at its disposal, and newly-elected MPs will be eager to
replenish the bank accounts that they depleted during their
campaigns.


4. (C) A high ranking PPP official told us recently that his
party aims not just to eke out a majority, but to build a
coalition of 280 seats or more, in order to establish a sense
of stability (and, we would add, legitimacy). PPP's hope
appears to be to draw the maximum number of partners while
keeping to a minimum the number of cabinet seats it concedes
to them. Most others -- aside from the second-place Democrat
Party, which has publicly refused to join PPP -- appear to
want to maximize their own importance in what many people
expect to be a PPP-led government.


5. (SBU) PPP's potential partners must play a delicate
balancing act. They have reason to play "hard to get," to
extract high compensation for their support -- but they also
should worry that if they hold out too long, PPP could leave
them on the sidelines, empty-handed. One politician from
Ruam Jai Thai Chart Pattana used an apt analogy, saying the
smaller parties were "sitting in the fishbowl," referring to
an arrangement common in Thai brothels wherein prostitutes
sit behind a glass wall, waiting to be chosen by a client.

MOTHERLAND: TO THE MILITARY, AND BEYOND
--------------


6. (C) The Motherland Party controls a large enough block of
MPs to provide PPP with a clear majority, and Motherland's
agreement to join with PPP would surely prompt all other
small parties to jump on the bandwagon. Perhaps equally

BANGKOK 00006280 002.2 OF 003


important, many people believe the party has close ties to
the military (see, for example, ref A and B).


7. (C) Just prior to the election, a senior PPP official told
us that the Motherland Party had rejected PPP's overtures;
negotiations between the two parties appear to be ongoing,
however. PPP advisor Jakrapob Penkair told us on December 27
that PPP was negotiating simultaneously with Motherland's
leadership and with various sympathetic Motherland MPs-elect
from constituencies with widespread support for deposed Prime
Minister Thaksin. Jakrapob asserted that Motherland
represented PPP's channel to the military and beyond (read:
the Palace),and that reaching an accommodation with
Motherland would resolve any concerns about the military
potentially moving to block PPP's formation of a government.


8. (C) Jakrapob had complained publicly that retired General
(and Privy Council President) Prem Tinsulanonda had summoned
the Motherland and Chart Thai leaders to his residence on the
election night. On December 27, though, Jakrapob told us he
had no further indications Prem was trying to influence
coalition negotiations. Since the election, Prem, Army
Commander Anupong Paojinda, and Supreme Commander Boonsrang
Niumpradit have publicly called for national unity and have
not laid down any public markers that they would find a PPP
government unacceptable.

CHART THAI TYING ITSELF TO MOTHERLAND
--------------


9. (C) A top Chart Thai official had assured us before the
election that Chart Thai leader Banharn Silapa-Archa would
refuse to work with Thaksin's PPP, and Banharn's public
statements indicated a commitment to cooperation with the
Democrat Party. However, few figures in Thai politics appear
more pragmatic and self-interested than Banharn, and it is
difficult to believe he would resign himself to Chart Thai's
exclusion from a PPP-led government. In a December 26
conversation, Chart Thai MP-elect Varawut Silapa-Archa
(Banharn's son) told us that Chart Thai aimed simply to
promote stability by ensuring that any governing coalition
would be large enough to govern effectively. Toward this
end, Chart Thai and the Motherland Party had formed a "pact"
to negotiate as a block with other parties. While we are
skeptical that this agreement will restrain either party from
pursuing what it perceives as the most beneficial course of
action for itself, Varawut described the pact as "pretty
firm."


10. (C) PPP's Jakrapob told us that the Chart Thai-Motherland
pact would simply provide useful political cover for Banharn
to ditch the Democrats and align himself with PPP. If the
Motherland Party were to join with PPP, this would signal the
blessing (or resignation) of Thailand's critical
behind-the-scenes royalists, rendering moot any commitment
that Banharn had made to such figures not to support Thaksin,
Jakrapob indicated.

OTHERS HAVE REASON TO WORK WITH THAKSIN
--------------


11. (C) While the mid-sized parties garner more media
attention, smaller parties, which control enough votes to
provide PPP with a majority, have motivation to join with PPP:

- Ruam Jai Thai Chart Pattana is home to numerous former Thai
Rak Thai (TRT) leaders. An official from Ruam Jai Thai Chart
Pattana told us on December 27 that one of her party's key
behind-the-scenes figures, Suwat Liptapanlop, was
particularly eager to regain the political rights he had lost
by virtue of the Constitutional Tribunal's May dissolution of
TRT; restoring those rights is one of PPP's announced
objectives. (Suwat's view and motivation may carry
particular weight, as five of Ruam Jai Thai Chart Pattana's
nine MPs-elect are from Suwat's stronghold, Nakhon Ratchasima

BANGKOK 00006280 003.2 OF 003


province.) Nevertheless, our contact told us that Ruam Jai
Thai Chart Pattana had not yet committed to any particular
coalition.

- Although Matchima Party Leader Prachai Leophairatana was an
ardent foe of Thaksin, Prachai did not win a seat in the
House and he appears likely to shift his focus from party
affairs to his personal legal problems (ref C). Even before
the election, he appeared uninterested in funding Matchima
candidates outside of the Bangkok region. Some news reports
indicate Prachai has already deserted the party. Of the
seven Matchima figures who won election (all from outside
Bangkok),five have prior direct or family associations with
TRT.

COMMENT
--------------


12. (C) Ongoing negotiations may be contentious and opaque --
particularly since the election results are not yet final,
and disqualifications could alter the parties' relative
values. But even though PPP may face some resistance in
coalition talks, it clearly has the initiative and momentum
from its election day victory. The Democrats' only scenario
for blocking PPP would entail drawing nearly every other
party into its orbit, even though PPP, needing fewer partners
than the Democrats, can offer more cabinet seats in exchange
for some of these parties' support. It is, therefore,
difficult to imagine that PPP will prove unable to form the
next government, although we are waiting to see the smaller
parties commit publicly to the coalition.
ENTWISTLE