Global Impact: Southeast Asian politics provide plenty of drama and intrigue, but who are the real winners?

Global Impact is a weekly curated newsletter featuring a news topic originating in China with a significant macro impact for our newsreaders around the world

In this issue, we look back at recent elections in the likes of Cambodia, Thailand and Malaysia following a busy time for politics in Southeast Asia in recent weeks

Reading Time:5 minutes

Published: 2:00pm, 21 Aug 2023

Global Impact is a weekly curated newsletter featuring a news topic originating in China with a significant macro impact for our newsreaders around the world. Sign up now!

The summer of 2023 is not yet over, but it has already cemented itself as one of the more pulsating periods of recent times as far as Southeast Asian politics is concerned.

From Cambodia to Thailand, Malaysia, and even the usually staid Singapore – all countries with China as their biggest trading partner – there has been some degree of political drama.

In Thailand, the youth-centric Move Forward Party was the undoubted winner of the May 14 election, after the public warmed to its messages on structural reforms and social equality.

Yet, three months on, the party has not been able to form a new government as it does not have the support of the legislature’s crucial upper house, which is stacked with members of the royalist establishment ardently opposed to it.

03:05

Symbol of betrayal? How chocolate-mint drink fell victim to Thailand’s political divide

What happens next is anybody’s guess. Some have suggested that the kingdom could see the return of the exiled former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra as a result of political horse trading by his Pheu Thai party – the election runners-up – and the election’s losers, the pro-establishment parties.