No more coups: in fight to reform Thai military, millennials are a secret weapon

The billionaire’s Future Forward is among a group of parties that plan to end the culture of coups d’etat should they take power after the March 24 polls

While resistance from the junta is fierce, these parties have a bastion of support – millennial voters who are against the army’s outsize influence

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Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit’s Future Forward party is courting the youth vote in a kingdom plagued by coups. Photo: AFP

Published: 10:30am, 16 Mar 2019Updated: 7:35pm, 16 Mar 2019

If Thailand’s pro-democracy parties had a “moon shot” – besides overcoming severe handicaps to form government after the March 24 elections – it would be pushing through military reform when they come to power.

The sheer audacity of such a plan was revealed last month. Upon hearing the Pheu Thai Party’s plan to cut the country’s military budget by 10 per cent to fund job-creation initiatives, army chief Apirat Kongsompong reacted with fury.

Those behind the proposal, the Royal Thai Army commander-in-chief said, needed to listen to the song Nak Phandin – an anthem used by right-wing zealots who massacred pro-democracy activists in 1976. Its title roughly translates to “burden of the land”.

The message from Apirat was clear – anyone who attempts to reform the military is an enemy of the state. So why are the pro-democrats so keen to plod along with this plan?

Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit, the billionaire chief of the Future Forward Party, gets slightly irritated when posed this question by This Week in Asia.

“That’s not the right question I think. The right question is, ‘Should it be done?’ If it should be done, we will push for it, we will fight for it,” said the 40-year-old politician.

“If we think it is not possible or not feasible, then we [should] stay at home and spend time with our families.”