Thailand’s 2025 Municipal Elections: Triumph of Tradition or Transition?

Despite rising urban political awareness and party penetration at the national level, elections at the municipal level in Thailand are a lesson about how traditional political families persist in dominating local elections. Indeed, most winning candidates were connected to local bigwigs. Given their entrenched roots and ability to bring about tangible outcomes, the dominance of these families will continue to persist.

The 11 May municipal polls occurred in all of the country’s 76 provinces minus Bangkok and Pattaya. As a Bangkok Post report noted, the elections were important for shaping “daily life, from road repairs and waste management to community development,” though these municipalities were often plagued by “corruption” as well.  The focus was on 2,469 municipalities; 348 of these only chose councillors because they had already selected their mayors. There were around 65,000 candidates, 4,500 competing for the posts of municipal mayors, with the remainder vying for council member positions.  Municipal elections occurred in three sizes: sub-districts, townships and cities. Vote-buying allegations abound.

Decentralised popular elections in urban areas only commenced with the 1997 Constitution, following attempts beginning in 1933. In 2003, mayors were elected by popular vote for the first time. Since then, there have only been four municipal polls containing both council and mayoral elections (2008, 2012, 2021, 2025), with urban or municipal polls temporarily nixed during the 2014-2019 period under military rule. The sequence in which electoral decentralisation (1997) was initiated also post-dated national elections (1933) and the establishment of strong national political parties (beginning in 1957), which relied on local powerholders for support. Had Thailand experienced more bottom-up political development, with local representative institutions preceding national ones, local political family influence could have evolved to be stronger than they are today.

Traditionally, baan yai (“big houses”) or political families have dominated local (including municipal) politics in Thailand. Their influence often extends to the national level through control of vote canvassing networks and factions that parties need to mobilise electoral support.  In all previous municipal elections up to the last ones in 2021, these local “big names” with local prestige, wads of cash (and allegedly, with vote buying) have been successful. Perhaps surprisingly, the baan yai have retained influence in local elections even in urban contexts and despite broader shifts toward nationalised and party-centred politics best seen in general elections. The interest of the baan yai in municipal politics owes partly to their acquiring and retaining influence over local businesses and maintaining sway over local budgets.

Political parties have generally relied on baan yai to win municipal elections. This owes crucially to the fact that parties have rarely won elections independent of them. Moreover, unlike at the national level, municipal level candidates do not have to affiliate with parties.  Most politicians at the provincial and city levels have links to the established families, and have usefully acted as vote canvassers for major parties, including the Pheu Thai (PT) party. These parties did not directly field municipal candidates. Rather than risk alienating these influential local elites, national parties often accommodated candidates with no party affiliations, thus reinforcing baan yai dominance. Ultimately, old-style politicians’ triumphs obstructed victories for new alternative politicians. Thus, any significant, local-level change seemed unlikely, with elections essentially becoming a rotation of the same elites. For political parties to succeed, they generally had to ally with the baan yai.

… baan yai will continue to lord over elections at the municipal level while political parties dominant at the national level will have to rely on connections with these “big houses” at the municipal level.

PT’s strategy of indirectly supporting baan yai candidates not belonging to any party has proven to be relatively successful. In Thaksin’s hometown of Chiang Mai, for example, Asanee Buranupakorn, the PT-backed scion of the Buranapakorn political family, was triumphant. In Kalasin, a northeastern province where Thaksin is popular, Kiratikarn Pimpanit, also from a local baan yai and son of a PT Member of Parliament (MP), scored a victory. In megacity Khorat, PT triumphed with a baan yai mayor.

In the February 2025 provincial elections, the Bhumjai Thai (BJT) party sought to win by informally allying with local and unaffiliated political families who fielded candidates belonging to no parties. In the case of Buriram — the stronghold city of BJT — the party supported local baan yai candidates not directly affiliated with the party to win almost all municipal posts there. This party backing could help strengthen baan yai resilience at the municipal level and reinforce their control over budgets and other interests.

Baan Yai Connections With Benefits

Table 1: Candidates in Significant Municipalities

By contrast, national parties which attempted to contest municipal elections without baan yai support or relied on their own organisational strength have often failed. The People’s Party (PP), for example, directly nominated candidates in 101 municipalities in 39 provinces and sought to bring reformist party politics to localities. But its performance in the municipal elections was abysmal.

PP lost in all city-level municipality elections, triumphing only in some small subdistrict municipalities. Its losses stem from myriad factors. PP’s dismal performance underscored the strength of local clans in provincial urban politics and its failure to impose a national-level party agenda at the municipal level. The elections also highlighted the party’s lack of unity and popularity. On a more general level, the ban on advance voting was not conducive to young and PP-inclined urbanites. It is hard to determine which of the factors weighed most heavily on the party’s fortunes.

Several factors can explain the success of the baan yai in municipal elections. A major factor is their well-financed political machines. Voters also trust them for getting things done, whether it be fixing roads or improving sanitations. With their connections, baan yai can often manipulate local politics. In conclusion, baan yai will continue to lord over elections at the municipal level while political parties dominant at the national level will have to rely on connections with these “big houses” at the municipal level. In addition, the baan yai will continue to dominate local politics despite urbanisation and attempts by national politics to exert influence in municipal politics. There is also a growing duality here: the more national the elections, the more parties (and ideologies) will be crucial; the more local the poll, the more patronage, local name recognition, and tangible successes on the ground will be all-important. While municipal elections are part of Thailand’s growing democracy, such polls, overshadowed by local, powerful interests, are in need of greater pluralism to strengthen the voice of voters themselves.

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