Southern Thai Politics: A Preliminary Overview

This paper reviews some of the features of politics in the South of Thailand, seeking to establish to what extent there is a distinctive character to those politics. Specifically, how can we account for the longstanding strength of the Democrat Party in the South? To what extent is southern politics animated by deeper “primordial loyalties ” than politics elsewhere in Thailand? To what extent does southern politics demonstrate a capacity to resist the recent trend towards commercialisation which has characterised electoral politics in the rest of Thailand? How far have specific aspects of history, culture, geography and religion contributed to the character of southern politics? The paper is intended as a preliminary contribution to the political historiography of the South. Characterising the Politics of the South Prior to the fifth reign, the South was recognised as a distinct entity; kalahom, the Ministry of the South, was responsible for the administrative organisation of this part of the kingdom, the minister acting as a kind of viceroy (Vickery 1970: 865; Wilson 1967: 144) – though in practice control was rather loose. The reforms of the fift