Welcome to Foreign Policy’s Southeast Asia Brief.
The highlights this week: Thailand’s conservatives’ big election win, a new leadership body for Myanmar’s junta, and the question of whether Indonesia’s steady GDP growth masks problems.
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Thai Conservatives Triumph at Polls
The results are in, and the conservatives have it. Bhumjaithai Party has emerged as the largest party in Thailand’s parliament by a wide margin, and while it fell short of a majority, it should face few problems forming a coalition.
The result it is epochal—it is the first time since 1996 that a solidly conservative party has triumphed at the polls. The liberal reformist People’s Party and the populist Thaksin dynasty vehicle Pheu Thai both fell back.
However, a referendum on drafting a new constitution to replace the current one—which was authored by a military junta—also passed handily, suggesting popular appetite for reform.
With nearly all votes counted, Bhumjaithai has netted 193 seats. It has a number of options to build a coalition that would put it firmly over the 250-seat threshold needed for a majority. And while the People’s Party has flagged potential irregularities, it has accepted Bhumjaithai’s victory.
So, how did this happen? Machiavellian politics, an adept harnessing of patronage and machine politics, and a war-related surge of patriotism all played roles. Anutin, the leader of Bhumjaithai, seized opportunities to build what in 2023 was only the third-largest party, based on a few local strongholds, into a national force.
First, he helped precipitate the collapse of the Pheu Thai government, abandoning it when it was rocked by a leaked phone call between Pheu Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra and Cambodian leader Hun Sen in July 2025 amid a brief conflict with Cambodia.
Emerging from rubble as a prime minister of a minority government, he ruthlessly built up his brand, leaning into his patriotic credentials. This, along with promises to block attempts to reform the monarchy’s role in politics, allowed him to consolidate the conservative vote.
He recruited some high-profile technocrats to boost governing credibility. And all the while, he encouraged baan yai—local political dynasties known for transactional patronage politics—to defect from other parties to support him. Come the election, he ruthlessly pursued votes in the country’s northeast—the front lines of the fighting with Cambodia—at the expense of Pheu Thai, which was once hegemonic there.
So, what now for the also-rans? Kla Tham, another conservative party with a strong localist bent, seems to be an obvious junior coalition partner, but since it has only 58 seats, Bhumjaithai will need more to have a strong majority.
Despite the bad blood, Pheu Thai might be lured into a coalition with the promise of positions. Or it could stay out—calculating that to survive in the long run, it needs to fight Bhumjaithai to win back its once rock-solid northeastern base.
Meanwhile, the People’s Party will almost certainly head the opposition, having ruled out a coalition with Bhumjaithai. It will be bitterly ruing its decision to lend support to the latter’s minority government in return for promise of constitutional reform.
The deal—and the moderation of the People’s Party’s criticisms of the army and monarchy’s political role following the clashes with Cambodia—angered supporters who felt that the party had compromised its reformist principles.
The referendum proposing a new constitution did succeed handily, however, with 60 percent of voters supporting the proposal at time of writing. With Bhumjaithai firmly in power, though, any new drafts will likely fall short of the People’s Party’s more radical hopes.
Anutin supported a new constitution, saying that he understood people’s desire for one not authored by the military. But he also ruled out any changes to the status of the monarchy—previously a key goal for the People’s Party, which sees it as a bulwark of conservative power.
Having grasped power, the challenge now will be to govern effectively. Thailand’s economy is flagging. Growth is anemic. National and household debt are high. And key industries such as automotive manufacturing and tourism have been battered in recent years.
Bhumjaithai promised in its campaign to restore growth. But its signature policies were mainly giveaways aimed at treating immediate distress, including a consumer spending subsidy.
Whether the economic technocrats that it recruited can flesh out and push through the more serious reforms needed remains to be seen.
Myanmar builds a new supreme body. Myanmar’s junta announced plans to create a new top government body, a five-member Union Consultative Council.
Under the new rules, Myanmar’s president will form the council “for the purpose of advising on and coordinating matters relating to Union security and the rule of law, international relations, peace affairs, and legislative affairs.”
The one caveat afforded is that the body should not encroach upon “executive power and the judicial power.”
Analysts suggest that the aim is to let junta leader Min Aung Hlaing retain supreme power even as new governing structures are built post-coup.
One scenario suggested by analysts is that Min Aung Hlaing would assume the presidency—an ambition that he has long hinted at—and govern via the council.
Another possibility is that he might allow another to become president but still wield ultimate authority by serving as the chair of the council.
Philippine president beats impeachment rap. Philippine President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. has won his impeachment battle.
The House of Representatives voted to dismiss charges leveled against him—of corruption, violating the constitution, and betraying public trust.
The development was unsurprising. Allies of Marcos have a strong grip on the House, which makes it unlikely that the committee decision will be overridden.
However, this will do little to fix his growing unpopularity with the general public. His approval rating sunk to new lows in a poll published December as public anger over corruption grew.
And even though he may still has enough influence to protect himself, Marcos’s political influence is waning.
Last year saw disappointing midterm elections for groups aligned with him. And his attempt to regain energy by shining the spotlight on corruption has backfired.
Eyes are turning to the 2028 election, where Vice President—and now sworn foe of Marcos—Sara Duterte is the odds-on favorite.
With her father, Rodrigo Duterte, detained by the International Criminal Court, Duterte has a ready-made issue to stoke anger among many Filipinos who still support the former president.
Indian PM visits Malaysia. Having previously skipped the October 2025 Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit due to the attendance of Pakistan’s effective leader, Field Marshal Asim Munir, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Malaysia on Feb. 7-8.
India-Southeast Asia ties have long been underdeveloped, despite Indian leaders at times expressing a desire to do more.
On this visit, there were warm words about encouraging trade, the use of local currency in bilateral economic relations, semiconductors, security, and education, but little concrete. Attempts to liberalize trade are mainly taking place at the India-ASEAN level.
With the United States remaining unpredictable and China irritated over Malaysia’s apparent concessions to Washington in its trade deal, India is starting to look like a potential hedge.
A deminer from the Cambodian Mine Action Centre inspects unexploded ordnance at the Preah Vihear temple in Preah Vihear, Cambodia, on Feb. 6.Tang Chhin Sothy/AFP/Getty Images
The centuries-old sandstone facades of Cambodia’s UNESCO-listed Preah Vihear temple are pocked with fresh shrapnel scars after weeks of deadly border clashes with neighboring Thailand. Considered a masterpiece of Khmer architecture that looks out over the northern Cambodian plains, the temple became a war zone when a long-standing border dispute erupted into fighting with jets, artillery, tanks, and ground troops last year.
After Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi stated that a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan would affect Japan’s security, China sought to rally Southeast Asian nations to condemn it, invoking shared historical experience of “Japanese fascism” in World War II. The appeal maybe wasn’t entirely fruitless. A good scoop by Dewey Sim was published in the South China Morning Post.
An interesting opinion piece by Kevin Chen in Channel News Asia digs into how Southeast Asia might engage with an unpredictable United States. “It will take careful planning to engage Washington without incurring its wrath. But for the moment, the benefits of engagement still outweigh the cost of hiding,” Chen writes.
Incredible scoop or fake? Project 88, a nongovernmental organization focused on Vietnam, has published what it claims are secret Vietnamese Navy plans wargaming a second U.S. invasion. The report caused a lot of buzz, but a number of commentators have questioned the veracity of the documents, noting oddities such as grammatical errors—so reader beware.
In Focus: Is Trouble Brewing for Indonesia’s Economy?
On Feb. 5, Indonesia announced that its economy had grown 5.11 percent in 2025. With tariffs flying around, this is a solid figure. But there are caveats.
The result is short of the 8 percent target of President Prabowo Subianto, and there is little sign of things speeding up.
Look under the hood, and there are worrying signs. As noted in last week’s newsletter, Indonesia’s stock market has taken a beating—though the current government cannot be fully blamed for long-existing dysfunctions that sparked the run on stocks.
What it can be blamed for is that on Feb. 5, Moody’s announced that it was cutting Indonesia’s credit rating outlook from “stable” to “negative.” On Feb. 6, it downgraded its credit outlook for 14 major state-owned companies including banks, oil companies, telecoms companies, and miners. This cut is linked to worries about Indonesia’s fiscal policy and governance generally.
Since the new government came to power in 2024, budgets have been drastically rearranged to channel cash into flagship government policies such as free lunches and a defense build-up.
While other areas, including infrastructure spending and transfers to local government, have been slashed to accommodate this, the government has also borrowed more—even as tax revenues have stalled.
Some now think that in 2026, Indonesia might breach its maximum 3 percent legal deficit target in pursuit of government programs that won’t boost growth.
On governance, there are worries, too. The president has just appointed his nephew to be the deputy governor to Bank of Indonesia—rarely a good sign, though inflation remains moderate for now.
Meanwhile, nearly a year after a massive new holding company for state-owned enterprises, Danantara, was set up, many business people still have more questions than answers about its strategy.
Said questions include: Why are private Indonesian corporates expected to buy billions in subpar “patriot bonds” from it? And when the government confiscates plantation land, alleging corruption, who is actually taking control of it?
