2023 Thailand general election - May 14th

[jaichind]

In this election, many 2019 district winners defected.  Most of them did not do well, especially in urban areas where the district vote is more correlated with the PR vote.

Urban seats

Party    Incumbents                       Incumbant
           same party       won           Defectors         won
BJT           2                  0                   27               0
PPP         14                  1                    1                0
DP           3                  0
UTN                                                 11                 0
CTPP                                                 1                 0

PT         32                  9                    5                 2
MFP        7                  7


Rural seats

Party    Incumbents                       Incumbant
           same party       won           Defectors         won
BJT         33                 23                  20               3
PPP         27                16                    4                2
DP          20                  7
UTN                                                 18               10
CTPP        7                 6

PT         59                31                    3                 2
MFP        1                  1
PP          5                  5

A lot of 2019 FFP winners defected to other parties (most to BJT) instead of running for MFP. All of them lost.  PT's losses in incumbent candidates from a 2019 underperformance (mostly to PPP) are symbolic of its 2023 underperformance (mostly to MFP in urban areas and BJT in rural areas.)   A lot of incumbents, especially in urban areas, defected to BJT and all of them bombed and many got a very tiny vote share.

[jaichind]

https://thediplomat.com/2023/06/factional-politics-after-thailands-election-survive-or-decline/

"Factional Politics After Thailand’s Election: Survive or Decline"

The article points out that despite MFP taking a bunch of seats from factional candidates (mostly aligned with pro-military parties like BJT but also sometimes with PT) does not diminish the power of local factions due to their domination of local politics.  Besides the factional candidates did win a bunch of rural seats.  The article points out one observation I made, namely: the 2 ballot system actually helps the local factional candidates (which I call local kingpins) since the anti-miliary voter can vent their anger against the regime by voting MFP on the PR vote and then swing back to voting for the local faction candidate over the MFP candidate on the FPTP ballot.