Thailand is a constitutional monarchy ruled by King Maha Vajiralongkorn, who serves as head of state. Although the monarchy has limited formal power, the king has significant influence over Thai politics and the military in particular.

The constitution, which was developed by a committee appointed by the military’s National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) following a 2014 coup, was approved in a tightly controlled 2016 referendum. According to the charter, the prime minister is selected by a bicameral majority vote of the House of Representatives and the Senate. The lower chamber has 500 elected seats, and until 2024, the Senate had 250 members who were appointed by the former military government.

After the May 2023 general elections, the progressive MFP, which won a plurality of 151 seats in the House of Representatives, moved to form a coalition government with the PTP and several small opposition parties. However, with a total of 313 members, the prospective coalition failed to meet the 376-seat threshold needed to nullify the unelected Senate’s voting bloc and secure a bicameral majority. Following the Senate’s successful blocking of an MFP-led government, the PTP changed sides, distancing itself from pledges to reform laws related to the monarchy and forging a coalition government with conservative or military-aligned parties.

The new government was led by Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin of the PTP from July 2023 until August 2024, when he was removed from office by the Constitutional Court for appointing a cabinet official who had previously been jailed for allegedly attempting to bribe a judge. The parliament then voted to elect the PTP’s Paetongtarn Shinawatra, daughter of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, as prime minister.

Under the military-drafted constitution, the bicameral National Assembly currently consists of the unelected, 200-seat Senate and the elected, 500-seat House of Representatives. Until July 2024, the Senate was made up of 250 members who had been appointed by the former military government in 2019.

The May 2023 House of Representatives elections were contested by 70 political parties and featured a record voter turnout of 75.2 percent. Intensive electoral monitoring by a broad civil society coalition helped improve public confidence in the process. Under a new dual-vote system that was designed to reward large parties with greater majorities, 400 members were elected in individual contests and 100 according to party-list votes. The MFP led with 151 seats, followed by the PTP with 141 and the royalist, conservative Bhumjaithai Party with 71. Thailand’s two main military-aligned parties—Palang Pracharath (PPRP) and United Thai Nation (UTN)—won 40 and 36 seats, respectively. Thirteen smaller parties accounted for the remainder.

The Asian Network for Free Elections (ANFREL), an international election-monitoring body, reported “improved accountability, transparency, and inclusivity” in 2023 compared with the 2019 elections. The official results, though released more than a month after the elections, were largely undisputed. Nevertheless, ANFREL and domestic observation groups such as We Watch noted ongoing structural and procedural problems, including the role of the unelected Senate in the formation of the government.

In June 2024, the Senate completed its first selection process to replace the existing, military-appointed chamber, with 20 different professional groupings each choosing 10 officially nonpartisan candidates. The process was roundly decried as undemocratic and resulted in a new Senate that was dominated by candidates affiliated with the Bhumjaithai Party and its allies, who reportedly took at least 150 of the 200 seats. Numerous fraud and vote-buying complaints and an investigation into candidate qualifications marred and delayed the announcement of the results. The new Senate convened for the first time in late July.

The military-drafted 2017 constitution was designed to weaken political parties and elected officials while strengthening unelected institutions with a conservative and royalist orientation. Neither the new Senate established in 2024 nor its predecessor was chosen through a popular vote, and the 2024 selection process lacked basic transparency. The prime minister is selected through a combined vote of both legislative chambers, granting the Senate a powerful role in the process.

The 2023 elections were overseen by the Election Commission of Thailand (ECT), whose incumbent members were appointed by the NCPO regime in 2018. The commission subsequently played a pivotal part in a series of complaints and court rulings that led to the dissolution of the MFP. After the Constitutional Court ruled in January 2024 that the MFP’s advocacy for reforms to the lèse-majesté law were an unconstitutional threat to the country’s monarchy and system of governance, the ECT petitioned the court in March to shutter the party, which it did in August.

While a variety of political parties have been able to form and compete in elections, the courts have repeatedly used various legal grounds to weaken and dissolve successful parties that appear to threaten the dominance of unelected institutions.

After the success of the progressive reformist Future Forward Party (FFP) in the 2019 elections, party leader Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit faced criminal charges and was barred by the Constitutional Court from taking his legislative seat over a complaint that he had held shares in a media company while applying to serve in the legislature. The FFP itself was abolished in early 2020 following a Constitutional Court ruling that a loan it received from Thanathorn constituted an illegal donation.

In 2023, the FFP’s successor party, the MFP, also experienced official harassment, legal obstacles, and other impediments. Shortly before the 2023 elections, a complaint was filed against MFP leader Pita Limjaroenrat for allegedly holding shares in a media company in contravention of electoral rules. Although the allegation lacked merit, it was used by the Constitutional Court in July 2023 to suspend Pita from his seat in the parliament. In August 2023, a Supreme Court ruling punished another MFP leader, Pannika Wanich, with a lifetime ban from politics for allegedly breaching “ethical standards” by pointing at a portrait of the former king in a photo she posted to social media in 2010. Separately, in December 2023, a criminal court sentenced MFP lawmaker Rukchanok Srinork to six years in prison for past social media posts that were deemed insulting to the monarchy. Other former MFP legislators faced serious lèse-majesté charges during 2024.

In August 2024, the MFP was disbanded by the Constitutional Court for allegedly undermining the country’s system of governance by calling for reform of the lèse-majesté law. Members of the party’s executive board, including Pita Limjaroenrat, were banned from politics for 10 years. The MFP’s remaining lawmakers quickly reformed as the People’s Party.

Opposition parties and democratic rotations of power have historically been constrained through interventions by the military, the courts, and other unelected bodies. In the 2023 elections, the prodemocracy opposition parties MFP and PTP dramatically outpolled parties associated with the incumbent government, winning a combined 292 out of 500 seats in the House of Representatives. They joined smaller parties to form a strong majority coalition in the lower chamber, but the MFP was effectively blocked from government by the appointed Senate and parallel legal cases taken up by the Constitutional Court and the ECT. The PTP was able to form a new coalition by changing tack and reaching agreements with conservative and military-aligned parties, and its nominee, Srettha Thavisin, became prime minister.

Unelected institutions reasserted their authority in various ways during 2024, pushing back against both the MFP and PTP and undermining their recent electoral successes. Shortly after it dissolved the MFP in August, the Constitutional Court also removed Srettha as prime minister over an alleged ethics violation related to one of his cabinet appointments. Separately, the year’s complicated Senate selection process resulted in a new upper house that was dominated by members affiliated with the conservative and royalist Bhumjaithai Party, which had won only 14 percent of the seats in the popularly elected lower house.

Score Change: The score declined from 2 to 1 because the Constitutional Court dissolved the country’s largest opposition party.

The Thai military has a long history of coups and other interventions in civilian politics. Prayuth Chan-ocha, leader of the most recent coup in 2014, remained prime minister through 2023 after the NCPO-appointed Senate and military-aligned political parties confirmed him in office following the tightly controlled 2019 elections.

The military and other unelected entities continued to exercise decisive influence after the 2023 elections, with the Senate thwarting the MFP’s attempt to form a government and the courts pursuing multiple cases against the party and its leaders. However, due to the scale of the opposition victory at the polls, some compromises were apparently necessary. On the same day that the PTP formed a government in coalition with military-aligned parties in August 2023, former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra—founder of the PTP’s predecessor parties and father of current PTP leader Paetongtarn Shinawatra—returned to Thailand after 15 years in exile. He was immediately taken into custody and ordered to serve an eight-year prison sentence on charges of corruption and abuse of power, but a royal pardon commuted the sentence to one year a week later. Thaksin served his sentence in a police hospital until February 2024, when he was released on parole. In one of several signs that unelected institutions were reasserting control over politics during the year, Thaksin was charged with lèse-majesté in June over a remark he made in South Korea in 2016, and in December the National Anti-Corruption Commission launched an investigation into the decision to allow him to serve his corruption sentence in a hospital.

Members of minority groups, particularly ethnic minorities and stateless residents, are generally unable to choose their representatives or organize independently to assert their interests in the political sphere. Malay Muslims in southern Thailand remain politically marginalized. The country’s nearly four million registered migrant workers are generally ineligible for citizenship, regardless of length of stay, and therefore lack political rights. The stateless population, estimated at nearly 600,000 by the United Nations, also lacks political rights. In October 2024, the government advanced plans to ease most stateless people’s eligibility for permanent residency and for citizenship five years later, with Thai-born children of such residents also set for access to citizenship under the proposal.

Women remain underrepresented in politics and government at all levels, and women’s interests are generally not prioritized in political life, though the 2023 elections brought further progress. The MFP ran on a platform that included pledges to promote gender equality, and its share of women lawmakers was the largest in the new parliament. Women overall made up more than 19 percent of the House of Representatives, compared with about 16 percent in the previous House and 6 percent in the incumbent Senate. The PTP also featured a comparatively large number of successful women candidates, and the party elected Paetongtarn Shinawatra, daughter of former prime minister Thaksin, as its leader in October; she went on to become prime minister after Srettha’s removal in August 2024. The new 200-seat Senate selected in 2024 included 45 women.

The interests of LGBT+ people are increasingly represented in national politics. The House of Representatives elected in 2023 included four openly LGBT+ members. After years of civic and political campaigning for equal rights, and the House and Senate approved a new law legalizing same-sex marriage in March and June 2024, respectively, clearing the way for its final approval by the monarch in September.

Thailand’s 2023 parliamentary elections, the formation of a government led by the PTP, and the transfer of the premiership from 2014 coup leader Prayuth Chan-ocha to civilian politician Srettha Thavisin all increased the extent to which official policies are determined by freely elected representatives. Nevertheless, Srettha was later removed from office by the Constitutional Court, and the PTP-led government remains beholden to military-aligned parties and unelected royalist senators, meaning it would be unlikely to take actions that conflict with the political interests of the military and monarchy.

In recent years, the king has consolidated and expanded the monarchy’s powers over the military and governance. In 2019, King Vajiralongkorn ordered the transfer of two elite army units to the palace’s direct command, citing Article 172 of the constitution, which allows a royal decree to be issued when an emergency threatens national security and the monarchy. A 2021 Constitutional Court ruling reasserted the monarchy’s preeminent role in the Thai state.

Thailand’s anticorruption legislation is inadequately enforced, and bribes and gifts are common practice in business, law enforcement, and the legal system. The National Anti-Corruption Commission has increasingly been used to launch politically motivated cases, including investigations of opposition lawmakers over their support for reform of the lèse-majesté law.

The elected House of Representatives’ oversight of the government has resulted in greater overall openness and transparency than under military rule, and parliamentary sessions are broadcast live. However, due in part to the military’s continued sway over many government operations, high-level decisions continue to be made opaquely, and procurement processes are similarly opaque.

The government has retained a number of laws introduced by the 2014–19 military junta that restrict free and independent media, including criminal defamation laws and an expanded Computer Crime Act (CCA).

Several journalists covering antigovernment protests during 2022 faced police violence or criminal charges. Conditions surrounding the 2023 election campaign were less restrictive, but the press remained unable to report freely on key issues, including the MFP’s campaign pledge to reform the monarchy and the country’s lèse-majesté laws. In February 2024, two journalists from the independent news outlet Prachatai were arrested for reporting on graffiti at a Buddhist temple that expressed opposition to the lèse-majesté law in 2023. The journalists were released on bail to await trial for allegedly collaborating in the vandalism.

The vast majority of Thais are Buddhist, and the king is considered the protector of Buddhism in Thailand. Speech deemed insulting to Buddhism is prohibited by law. In the context of a long-running civil conflict in the south that pits ethnic Malay Muslims against ethnic Thai Buddhists, local residents’ ability to practice their religions continues to be impaired by searches, raids, attacks on places of worship, and violence linked to religious identity. However, Muslim and other religious minority groups are recognized by law, and religious freedom is generally respected in most of the country.

Academic freedom is constrained in Thailand. The public education system is rife with propaganda aimed at instilling obedience to the country’s monarchy and military. University discussions and seminars on topics regarded as politically sensitive are subject to monitoring or outright cancellation by government authorities. Activism on university campuses remains restricted by administrators and the government, including through interference with student unions and prosecutions for sedition and violations of lèse-majesté laws. Academics working on sensitive topics face repressive tactics including interrogation, surveillance, and arbitrary detention.

Perceived critics of the government, the military, or the monarchy remain at high risk of surveillance, arrest, imprisonment, harassment, and physical attack. Some 140 laws enacted by the NCPO regime remained in place after it handed power to a civilian government, including measures that restrict freedom of expression. The CCA gives authorities broad powers to restrict online expression, impose censorship, and conduct surveillance, and allows lèse-majesté provisions to be enforced online.

Hundreds of people have been charged in recent years with speech-related offenses including lèse-majesté, sedition, and CCA violations, and many face multiple prosecutions. In January 2024, clothing vendor and democracy activist Mongkhon Thirakot had his 2023 lèse-majesté sentence extended from 28 years in prison to a record 50 years; the case stemmed from his Facebook posts that allegedly defamed the monarchy. In April, prominent democracy activist and human rights lawyer Arnon Nampa was sentenced to an additional two years in prison on a lèse-majesté charge, bringing his total prison sentence to more than 10 years, though he still faced multiple other cases.

Freedom of assembly is restricted, particularly for gatherings related to politically sensitive topics. During prodemocracy street demonstrations that were held frequently in 2020 and 2021, authorities used considerable force, including live ammunition, against protesters; tolerated violence against protesters by progovernment sympathizers; and employed lèse-majesté laws to quell dissent. The demonstrations receded over the course of 2022—the combined result of the criminalization of activism, the jailing of key leaders, public fatigue, and fractures within the protest movement. Numerous protest-related prosecutions continued during 2024.

Thailand has a vibrant civil society, but groups focused on defending human rights and freedom of expression or promoting press freedom and democracy continue to face legal and regulatory restrictions, surveillance, tax or money-laundering investigations, and criminal prosecutions, including under sedition and lèse-majesté laws. They may also encounter extralegal harassment or cyberattacks. Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that hold republican views, such as the Organization for Thai Federation, remain forbidden. Land and environmental activists risk serious and even deadly violence; the environmental rights NGO Global Witness has described Thailand as among the most dangerous countries in Asia for such activists. Perpetrators of attacks generally enjoy impunity.

In October 2024, the government introduced draft legislation that would impose onerous registration and reporting rules on NGOs. It would also allow authorities to dissolve organizations based on vague state interests like “public morality.” The bill had yet to be adopted at year’s end.

Thai trade unions are nominally independent and have the right to collectively bargain. However, most formal-sector workers are not unionized. Employers engage in antiunion activity, implementing lockouts and launching defamation cases against union members and organizers. Non-Thai nationals and migrant workers are prohibited from establishing unions or leading officially recognized unions. Unions and union leaders have faced criminal charges, severe fines, and prison terms for their activities.

While judicial independence is constitutionally guaranteed, courts are politicized in practice and regularly intervene in political affairs. The Constitutional Court has sweeping powers, including the ability to dissolve parties, overthrow elected officials, and block legislation. A 2018 law criminalized criticism of the Constitutional Court with “rude, sarcastic, or threatening words,” further shielding the body from accountability. The court has repeatedly removed elected prime ministers, most recently Srettha in August 2024, and has vigorously suppressed reformist leaders and parties that challenge the lèse-majesté law and the political dominance of unelected institutions. In 2021, the court ordered protest groups to cease their calls for reform, alleging that the activity amounted to an attack on the monarchy.

Restrictions that were originally implemented by the 2014–19 military government continue to severely undermine due process rights, in part by allowing forms of detention without a warrant. In parts of southern Thailand, a long-standing emergency decree gives the government authority to detain people without charge for a maximum of 30 days in unofficial places of detention.

As of December 2024, at least 1,960 people had faced criminal prosecution for protest-related activity since July 2020, according to Thai Lawyers for Human Rights. The charges against them included sedition and lèse-majesté violations. Many of the accused have been kept in pretrial detention for prolonged periods, denied bail, or offered bail under extremely stringent conditions. In May 2024, detained activist Netiporn “Bung” Sanesangkhom died from cardiac arrest while on a hunger strike she began in January. She was awaiting trial for lèse-majesté and other criminal charges and started the hunger strike to protest her and other activists’ detention without bail.

The police and military often operate with impunity regarding excessive force or violence, which is exacerbated by the absence of any law that explicitly prohibits torture. Separately, extraterritorial executions and disappearances of Thai dissidents in exile have been reported in recent years.

While most of Thailand is free from insurgency, a combination of martial law and emergency rule has been in effect for over a decade in the four southernmost provinces, where Malay Muslims form a majority and a separatist insurgency has been ongoing since the 1940s. Civilians are regularly targeted in shootings, bombings, and arson attacks, and insurgents have focused on schools and teachers as symbols of the Thai state. Thousands of suspected militants and sympathizers have been indiscriminately detained in counterinsurgency operations. There are long-standing and credible reports of human rights violations, including extrajudicial killings, by government forces and insurgents. Approximately 130 people were killed in connection with the conflict during 2024. Peace talks between the Thai government and the Barisan Revolusi Nasional (BRN) resumed in February 2024 after a suspension the previous year, but were disrupted again by Prime Minister Srettha’s removal and the replacement of his government in August; the negotiations remained stalled as of December.

Women, members of ethnic and religious minority groups, and noncitizens—including refugees and asylum seekers—face various disadvantages in Thai law and societal practices. Women are subject to discrimination in employment, a problem that was highlighted by the Royal Police Cadet Academy’s 2018 decision to ban female cadets. In Thailand’s north, so-called hill tribes are not fully integrated into society. Many individuals lack formal citizenship, which renders them ineligible to vote, own land, attend state schools, or receive protection under labor laws.

Thailand is known for its tolerance of LGBT+ people, as demonstrated by the adoption of a same-sex marriage law in 2024, though societal acceptance is higher for tourists and expatriates than for nationals, and unequal treatment and stigmatization remain challenges.

Thailand has not ratified the UN convention on refugees, meaning they risk detention as unauthorized migrants and often lack access to asylum procedures. The government continues to treat Rohingya and other refugees from Myanmar as illegal immigrants. These individuals are denied access to refugee status determination procedures and either detained in detention camps or, if arriving by boat, pushed back out to sea and onward to Indonesia and Malaysia. In one incident in April 2024, Thai soldiers near Mae Sot allegedly refouled several hundred Myanmar refugees by forcing them to cross the Moei River back into Myanmar. Immigration detention facilities reportedly feature overcrowding, lack of adequate food and health care, and cases of physical abuse.

Political exiles from regional states such as Cambodia, Myanmar, China, and Vietnam are also at high risk of transnational repression, abduction, and forced deportation. In December 2024, six Cambodian political activists were deported from Thailand, where they had been recognized as refugees by the United Nations, to Cambodia, where they faced trial for political crimes. Asylum seekers from China, especially ethnic Uyghur Muslims, have also been forcibly deported to China from Thailand.

Score Change: The score declined from 2 to 1 because Thai authorities in recent years have repeatedly detained foreign activists, refugees, and asylum seekers and deported them to their home countries, where they face ill-treatment.

Thai citizens generally have freedom of travel and choice of residence. However, movement may be restricted in areas affected by civil conflict. Many Thais facing politicized criminal charges related to the 2020–21 prodemocracy protests are unable to travel abroad.

The law protects property rights and the freedom to establish and operate businesses, though in practice business activity is affected at times by undue influence from security forces and organized crime. Court cases related to land and natural resources are susceptible to political interference.

While women have the same legal rights as men with respect to marriage, divorce, and other such personal status issues, they are vulnerable to domestic abuse and rape. Victims rarely report attacks to authorities, who frequently discourage women from pursuing criminal charges against perpetrators. Despite high rates of such violence, few cases result in arrest or prosecution.

In 2021, lawmakers decriminalized first-trimester abortions in keeping with a 2020 ruling by the Constitutional Court. The Public Health Ministry issued regulations in 2022 to allow abortions through the 20th week of pregnancy.

The lower house of parliament adopted a law allowing same-sex marriages in March 2024, and the Senate followed suit in June. The king granted his formal approval in September, meaning the first marriages could take place in January 2025.

Exploitation and trafficking of the large migrant worker population and refugees from Myanmar, Cambodia, and Laos are serious and ongoing problems, as are child labor and sweatshop labor. Thailand is a key source and transit country for criminal groups that use forced labor in online scam operations based in neighboring states. The US Department of State’s 2024 Trafficking in Persons Report maintained Thailand’s Tier 2 rating, indicating that the government “does not fully meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking but is making significant efforts to do so.”

Sex trafficking remains a problem in which some state officials are complicit. However, the government has made some efforts to prosecute and seize the assets of those suspected of involvement in human trafficking, including police officers and local officials.

Thai companies facing criticism for labor rights abuses continue to file libel lawsuits against activists and human rights defenders.