Anutin’s Hybrid Cabinet: Compromise and Control in Thai Politics

For three decades, Thai politics has been locked in a recurring clash between elites who rise to power through competitive elections and conservative powers entrenched in the bureaucracy and established institutional framework. Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul’s cabinet is a hybrid: a configuration comprising elected and unelected forces. Its rise does not mark a break from the recurring cycle but its recalibration. Rather than reform, it represents a concentration of power — an improvised truce that projects compromise while consolidating authority in Anutin’s hands. The unusual arrangement that pushed the Pheu Thai (PT) party into opposition and secured the People’s Party (PP) backing without including it in government is likely to deliver fragile stability, not transformation.

The significance of Anutin’s hybrid cabinet becomes clearer when set against Thailand’s political trajectory since the 1997 Constitution. That charter strengthened political parties and elected leaders but also provoked recurring clashes with conservative forces entrenched in the state — the military, judiciary, and technocrats. These tensions surfaced through successive military coups that overthrew Thaksin’s populist governments and in constitutional mechanisms designed to weaken dominant parties following his implementation of sweeping populist policies. The power of elected representatives has remained central yet persistently constrained, such that no government can expect to survive unless it accommodates entrenched conservative interests.

Against this backdrop, Anutin’s hybrid cabinet appears less an innovation than the latest outcome of these structural conflicts. To placate Thailand’s conservative establishment, Anutin appointed General Natthaphon Narkphanit, a close aide of former Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha, as defence minister, effectively entrenching military influence at the core of civilian government. Beyond defence, Anutin appointed Ekniti Nitithanprapas, a career technocrat, as finance minister, supported by Woraphak Thanyavong as deputy minister. Energy was entrusted to Atthaphon Rerkpiboon, who is from the state enterprise sector, while Suphajee Suthumpun, a veteran of Thailand’s old business elite, was appointed as commerce minister. The foreign affairs portfolio was handed to Sihasak Phuangketkeow, a senior diplomat, and Justice to Pol. Lt. Gen. Chanchai Phongphichitkul, a former police officer. Borwornsak Uwanno, a long-time constitutional expert, assumed a deputy premiership, presumably to oversee the direction of constitutional reform.

These appointments were possible only because PP refused to take up cabinet positions despite its conditional support for Anutin as prime minister. This allowed Anutin to form a minority government unconstrained by the usual cabinet quotas that would otherwise limit the appointment of senior bureaucrats, establishment technocrats, or traditional business elites. The distribution of key cabinet portfolios to outsiders should not, however, be understood as Anutin’s commitment to expand political participation or to pursue the kind of reforms that PP hoped he would fulfill. Instead, these strategic appointments are meant to reassure different groups — conservative elites, the monarchy, the military, and the middle class — of elite continuity. It is meant to signal a willingness to uphold — and even further solidify — conservative networks within the state.

Pork Policy Compromise

Figure 1: Anutin’s Cabinet Composition (by political group/ affiliation)

In return, Anutin is afforded the freedom to consolidate power in areas where it is deemed permissible. This is most evident in BJT’s control of powerful ministries — Interior, Education, Labour, and Higher Education — alongside deputy positions in Commerce and other agencies, giving the party both budgetary resources and local networks that can be converted into electoral strength. By holding both the premiership and the Interior Ministry, he has secured the levers of state authority and extended control over the central bureaucracy, provincial administrations, and local governments that shape everyday governance and electoral mobilisation. This dual role embeds Bhumjaithai in the state apparatus, strengthening its patronage networks and reinforcing its electoral base.

Other portfolios secured by BJT add to this advantage. Transport enables the party to steer infrastructure projects toward key constituencies, while Public Health offers high public visibility and control over a sector that resonates strongly with voters. Together, these ministries provide Bhumjaithai with organisational leverage and electoral benefits, ensuring the party’s influence extends well beyond the current cabinet.

This model is far from unprecedented. It recalibrates an older power-sharing arrangement in Thai politics: elected politicians delivered local benefits while technocrats safeguarded macroeconomic stability, a bargain common in the late 1980s and 1990s. The key difference from the first Thai Rak Thai (TRT) cabinet lies in the power dynamic. Thaksin also relied on technocrats, but he subordinated their expertise to his centralised populist agenda, which aimed to consolidate power and challenge the elite. In contrast, Anutin’s cabinet revives this traditional “pork-policy compromise” but firmly as a way to appease the establishment in exchange for the opportunity to further entrench control. In this sense, Anutin’s hybrid cabinet casts him less as a populist in the Shinawatra mold than as a pragmatic guardian of an order sanctioned by the elite.

In the post–Pheu Thai era, Thailand’s political reality reflects a significant shift in elite strategy. For years, the Shinawatra-led PT relied on mass populism and sweeping electoral victories to challenge the entrenched order, while the establishment responded confrontationally — through military coups, judicial dissolutions, and street mobilisations to topple elected governments. The emergence of Anutin’s hybrid cabinet, however, signals a turn toward a subtler and more sophisticated approach: balancing accommodation for party politicians and technocrats with the centralisation of authority in the hands of the prime minister and interior minister while distributing key portfolios to reassure conservative elites.

Ultimately, this hybrid cabinet is not a path to political reform but rather a mechanism of survival. It preserves fragile stability by balancing conservative demands with Bhumjaithai’s entrenchment in the state. Control of the premiership, interior, and key distributive portfolios embeds the party’s networks, while conservatives retain decisive authority over security, foreign policy, and constitutional design. The result is not transformation but a managed bargain — concentrating power within limits that safeguard the conservative order.

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