After winning the general election in May, the progressive Move Forward party in Thailand promised to introduce bold democratic reforms in the Southeast Asian nation. But last week, the party suffered an embarrassing defeat in parliament when its candidate of choice failed to muster enough votes to win the premiership and form a government.
Now, as parliament gathers on Wednesday to vote for prime minister for a second time in less than a week, the fragile coalition that Move Forward has cobbled together is on the verge of falling apart. At stake may be the fate of democracy in a nation that has repeatedly tried to overturn military rule and in a region where autocracy is on the rise.
"Thailand is not ready to change,” said Pongkwan Sawasdipakdi, a political scientist at Thammasat University in Bangkok. "People in the establishment are not going to let change happen.”