ARTICLES

By Joel Sawat Selway Image generated by ChatGPT In the two days since Thailand’s 2026 General Election, much of the international media converged on a single explanation for Anutin Charnvirakul’s victory. From Reuters to the Washington Post, headlines declared that nationalism had carried the Bhumjaithai Party to power. “Thailand’s PM Anutin staked his election on nationalism and won” (Reuters) “Thailand's Anutin rides wave of nationalism to election victory” (Agence France

A Technical Companion and Scenario Analysis Joel Sawat Selway Shorter version can be found at LatitudeTen .  Image generated by ChatGPT From Narrative Forecasts to Explicit Political Assumptions Most Thai election “forecasts” are not models in the statistical sense. They are narratives: extrapolations from recent polls, reputational judgments about parties, and informal assessments of candidate strength. Different analysts often disagree not because they see different data, b

by Joel Sawat Selway The party logo of Kla Tham (Brave Dhamma Party) Kla Tham (KT) poses an immediate puzzle for anyone trying to make sense of Thailand’s 2026 election. In national polls, the party barely registers, typically drawing less than 2% of intended constituency votes. Yet at the same time, KT is fielding more than forty sitting MPs in constituency races. This tension—between weak party-level polling and a large pool of incumbent candidates—captures a broader proble

by Joel Sawat Selway Image: NIDA's regional polls Source: https://nidapoll.nida.ac.th/all-polls/ A less technical version of this article will appear on LatitudeTen tomorrow. In the first article in this series, I introduced three simple ways of translating polling data into constituency seats. Using data from national polls, each method produced results that differed markedly from expert predictions, most notably, a People’s Party (PP) seat total well above the range sugge

Making Seat Projections from Polling Data By Joel Sawat Selway (a shorter version of this article was published on LatitudeTen ) Source: Official Campaign Media from Bhumjaithai website. In a recent ThaiRath article, four prominent political analysts independently converged on a striking conclusion: Bhumjaithai (BJT) is likely to emerge from the next general election as the largest party in parliament, winning somewhere between 140 and 150 seats. At first glance, this claim

by Mathis Lohatepanont and Chitchaya Chimtanoo Photo Credit: Per Meistrup , Wikipedia Creative Commons, Link Thailand’s election season is notorious for bringing out a tsunami of election banners that are stuck on every possible tree and electrical pole. But in the past election, a voter might be forgiven for feeling lost while trying to digest this potentially rich source of information for voter preferences. Thailand’s 2023 banners were interesting because they often contai

By Joel Sawat Selway Figure 1. The parties in the proposed "Opposition" coalition Source: ThaiPBS World Much of the talk in the...

By Joel Sawat Selway Figure 1. Map of Results in Upper North (Lanna) Source: Author’s own creation based on unofficial ECT results Since...

by Joel Sawat Selway Figure 1. The Nation's Predictions for Seats in the 2023 Thai General Elections Source: https://www.nationthailand.com/thailand/40027280 Thai polling firms seem intent on breaking records for sample sizes this election year! The pollster with the lowest average sample size, NIDA, has polled between 2,000-2,533 respondents. In contrast, the typical sample size for US polls—in a country almost five times larger—is 1,000. But NIDA’s sample size is modest in

by Allen Hicken Figure 1. Thailand's Ballot Design for the Upcoming Elections on March 14th Source: Khaosod “What number will you...

by Joel Sawat Selway Figure 1. Average of Thai polling in lead-up to Thai 2023 General Election Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wiki...

by Joel Sawat Selway and Allen Hicken Picture. Thai voters casting ballots at a local temple (wat), 2019 general election Credit: Jason...

by Kirk Hawkins and Joel Sawat Selway Source: World Economic Forum. Creative Commons License. As part of the Global Populism Dataset,...

by Ken Lohatepanont* Picture: Thai cabinet, July 16th 2019 Source: Prachatai Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha recently reshuffled his...

by Aim Sinpeng Source: Twitter @Citizen2600 “Let’s run, Hamtaro, the most delicious food is the people’s taxes” shouted Thai protesters as more than a thousand high school and university students ran around the Democracy Monument demanding democracy and justice on July 26. The Hamtaro protest idea, inspired by a popular Japanese cartoon, was crowdsourced on Twitter with the hashtag #IdeaForMob (#ไอเดียออกม็อบ) just 3 days before the protest. “ Judy ,” a second-year Thamma

By Joel Sawat Selway

By Aim Sinpeng

By Jacob Ricks

By Aim Sinpeng

By Rick Doner