The Roots of the People’s Party’s Pragmatism

As a prominent contender for the February 2026 election, the People’s Party (PP), formerly the Future Forward Party (FFP) and the Move Forward Party (MFP), has undergone a striking strategic and organisational shift. The departure from the politics of aspiration to one of pragmatism distances the party from the masses and could again make it a target of elite repression.

Once the party embraced the “politics of hope”, PP articulated structural change under authoritarian rule, mobilised young voters through aspirational narratives, and embedded itself in activist and grassroots networks. Yet, it has increasingly adopted a strategy of elite accommodation and electoral pragmatism. In September 2025, PP supported the Bhumjaithai Party (BJT), formerly a key adversary, in forming a government, enabling it to consolidate state power and expand its clientelistic networks. Simultaneously, PP has shifted its discourse from hope to fear, framing Thailand as a space of grey businesses and corruption in need of technocratic cleansing.

This reorientation is reflected in the party’s candidate selection. In the 2026 party-list rankings, long-standing activist and grassroots representatives have been pushed downward, while technocrats, entrepreneurs, and senior bureaucrats dominate the top tier. Prospective cabinet candidates are now drawn increasingly from unelected elites rather than Members of Parliament (MPs). Gender balance has also deteriorated: men overwhelmingly occupy leading list positions.

Why has the PP moved from its origins as a mass- and movement-based party towards an increasingly electoralist and pragmatic organisation? Party leader Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit has justified this shift as necessary pragmatism: only by engaging with the establishment, he argues, can the party achieve constitutional reform. Yet this claim rests on a false premise: the establishment has little incentive to support reforms that would dismantle its own sources of power, particularly co-opted institutions such as the Constitutional Court. This explanation also obscures a deeper structural cause. This author argues that PP’s transformation — from a “thick” mass- and movement-driven party to a “thin” electoralist entity less driven by masses of party cadres, members, and volunteers — is primarily the product of sustained state repression. This has eroded the organisational foundations required for a mass-based party. In the medium and long term, this retreat from party building weakens PP’s capacity to resist Thailand’s autocratisation, leaving it vulnerable to elite cooptation and dissolution.

The FFP was not conceived as a conventional electoral machine but as a movement-based party rooted in Thailand’s long tradition of student and pro-democracy activism. Its founders and first generation of party builders emerged directly from social movements, shaping the party’s ideology, organisational culture, and internal structure. Established in 2017 under General Prayut Chan-o-cha’s military regime, FFP became a focal point for anti-coup forces across civil society.

By abandoning movement-based politics, PP risks losing its youth and grassroots bases, alienating ideological voters, weakening its mass-based constituent power, and ultimately undermining its capacity to survive repression.

Rather than prioritising elite candidate recruitment, FFP initially focused on ideological recruitment from social movements. Activists formed the backbone of the party’s secretariat and provincial structures. Under military repression, this activist core was essential: their experience confronting authoritarian rule enabled the party to withstand intense political and legal attacks. At the same time, they contributed to party institutionalisation by infusing the party brand with values associated with efforts to dismantle the legacy of military rule.

Ideologically rooted in Marxist and centre-left traditions, FFP sought to build a mass-based, institutionalised party grounded in member participation and local organisation. The founders envisioned a party operating in parliament and in society, with members shaping party decisions through local branches and provincial committees. To institutionalise this model, FFP created inclusive “provincial teams” to integrate ordinary members into local decision-making and organisation, distinct from “MP teams” focused on legislative work. Anyone in a province could participate, allowing the party to grow rapidly while embedding itself in civil society. Regional coordinators were given wide autonomy to build networks, recruit members, and link the party to regional political ecosystems. This structure reflected FFP’s core commitment: parliamentary politics would be anchored in social mobilisation.

This organisational trajectory was interrupted by repeated party dissolutions: the Constitutional Court dissolved FFP on 21 February 2020 and MFP, its second incarnation, on 7 August 2024. Each dissolution forced the party into administrative limbo as it reconstituted itself under new names. Provincial structures were suspended, informal networks collapsed, and volunteer organisers dispersed — many permanently.

Under constant threat, organisational risk-taking became irrational. Opening branches, investing in grassroots organising, or deepening ties with social movements now carried danger. The loss of state funding during dissolution periods further pushed the party to prioritise parliamentary survival over organisational building. By the time of the MFP and later PP, electoral deadlines arrived too quickly to allow for the slow cultivation of cadres, branches, and membership bases.

The result was a structural shift in party-building strategy. Instead of mass organising, PP increasingly relied on social media mobilisation (กระแส), celebrity candidates, and centralised leadership. Youth wings, leadership pipelines, and provincial institutions were deprioritised. Decision-making became concentrated in the party secretariat, producing an “iron cage of oligarchy” in which elite control expanded as grassroots participation declined.

This organisational hollowing-out made disengagement from social movements almost inevitable. As local networks withered, the party lost its capacity to draw legitimacy and energy from mass participation. Elite-centred strategies, such as the “grand compromise” with establishment parties, thus became structural outcomes of a party that had lost its mass movement foundations.

As PP shifts towards elite accommodation and electoral pragmatism, it faces a growing crisis of identity and legitimacy, alongside a dilution of its party’s brand. While PP has not ruled out forming a coalition government with BJT, the latter possesses safer coalition options, most notably Pheu Thai, for securing a parliamentary majority. Electoralist strategies may function in liberal democracies, but in Thailand’s hybrid regime, elites can dissolve parties and suppress movements at will. Almost by default, a party without mass roots is structurally weak.

By abandoning movement-based politics, PP risks losing its youth and grassroots bases, alienating ideological voters, weakening its mass-based constituent power, and ultimately undermining its capacity to survive repression. Without rebuilding its organisational and social foundations, the party is drifting away from the mass public and becoming easier for the establishment to neutralise once again.

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