Abstract
Introduction
Election commissions (ECs) are the key institutions responsible for the organisation of polls, but their conduct has far-reaching implications that go beyond the technical aspects of electoral management and administration. This is particularly the case in conflict-prone and post-conflict societies where elections are not only mechanisms for accountability, representation, transfer of power and government formation, but they are also opportunities for fostering peace. Whether elections contribute to peace depends on many factors, including their timing, sequencing and the role of the international community (Donno et al., 2022; Flores and Nooruddin, 2012; Reilly, 2008), but ECs are also pivotal. So, when do ECs contribute to peace and when do they subvert it?
Over the past 30 years, civil society actors, policy experts and practitioners in electoral management and international electoral assistance have largely assumed that, in newly emerging or transitional democracies, embedding ECs within governmental bureaucratic structures makes them vulnerable to manipulation by ruling parties and incumbents, resulting in low-quality elections that risk political instability and violence. This assumption has led to a proliferation of ‘independent’ ECs, or ECs that are formally legally separate from the government. Independent ECs now manage elections in more than 64% of countries worldwide (International IDEA, 2024), but their record in fostering positive electoral outcomes remains mixed (van Ham and Garnett, 2019; van Ham and Lindberg, 2015: 469).
Several recent post-conflict studies indicate that inclusion on independent commissions is positively associated with a lower risk of violence (Donais and McCandless, 2017; Fontana et al., 2021; Neudorfer and Walsh, 2025; Walsh and Doyle, 2018). While these studies focus on a range of inclusion mechanisms on different independent commissions—which they define as institutions that ‘possess and exercise some grant of specialized [sic] public authority’ and that are ‘neither directly elected by the people, nor directly managed by elected officials’ (Walsh and Neudorfer, 2024: 761–762)—their findings are relevant for the study of independent ECs and their effects on peace.
Combining these post-conflict studies with studies in electoral violence and electoral management, I develop a relational approach to the study of independent ECs and their effects on peace by focusing on their inclusion–independence nexus rather than each factor alone. I apply this approach to a single qualitative case study of the Election Commission of Thailand (ECT) to allow for a closer reading of its inclusion–independence nexus and its effects on peace, tracing important changes over its 27-year history (1997–2024). This is rarely done (Birch, 2020: 152). By adopting this approach, I argue that the inclusion–independence EC nexus might not offer a straightforward recipe for peace in all post-conflict and conflict-prone contexts. Instead, it may offer power-hungry elites opportunities for weaponising ECs, ultimately subverting rather than fostering peace. This provides important lessons for broader scholarship on independent commissions in conflict-prone and post-conflict settings.
Inclusion on independent ECs: a recipe for peace?
Among the recent post-conflict studies, Neudorfer and Walsh (2025) argue that independent commissions ‘play a pivotal role in fostering peace by establishing new or substantially reformed institutional spaces’ that ‘facilitate collaboration among conflict parties as well as other diverse actors, offering a platform to address specific conflict issues while mitigating costs, resolving commitment issues, and providing essential technical expertise’. While such findings are promising, most research on ECs concerns the question of independence and its effects on electoral integrity or ‘the extent to which a[n electoral] contest is free, fair, and procedurally sound’ (Donno et al., 2022: 136). Although electoral integrity has positive effects on peace (Donno et al., 2022: 144), there are other factors that shape it besides ECs (Cheeseman and Elklit, 2020: 7). This makes direct extrapolations difficult. To help bridge this gap, I combine the recent post-conflict scholarship with studies in electoral violence and electoral management to develop a relational approach to the study of inclusion on independent ECs and its effects on peace.
Inclusion
Most academic discussions of inclusion on ECs in the post-conflict and electoral violence strand revolve around inclusion through power sharing, a common conflict management mechanism. Key debates in post-conflict scholarship reveal at least two distinct scholarly positions: one that sees inclusion as a mechanism of representation and the other that sees it as a mechanism of participation (Fontana et al., 2021: 346). In the context of ECs, the former is the representative ‘inclusion in’ mechanism that emphasises the inclusion of previously conflicting parties on the EC board, the primary seat of their decision making powers. This mechanism determines who can be appointed a commissioner and how. The latter is the participatory ‘inclusion by’ mechanism that emphasises the inclusion of the previously conflicting parties in the ECs’ decision making processes. It can take the form of consultative committees, structured dialogues, or other participatory mechanisms (Opitz et al., 2013). There is some evidence that both inclusion mechanisms can effectively promote peace, but the scholarly consensus is on the side of the participatory ‘inclusion by’ mechanism because a representative EC does not guarantee that its decision making will be inclusive and participatory (Bado, 2023; Lyons, 2004: 50–51; Reilly, 2004: 17).
Studies in the electoral management strand typically focus on the representative ‘inclusion in’ mechanism of EC membership. Key debates revolve around the benefits of partisan or multi-party versus non-partisan expert-based membership models and their effects on electoral integrity. For example, studies of ECs in Latin America indicate that the multi-party membership model might improve the overall credibility of polls as it helps increase trust among political parties and their candidates, but this only applies to countries with relatively high levels of democracy (Rosas, 2010: 86) or low levels of political polarisation (Hartlyn et al., 2008: 84). Cross-national comparative studies beyond this region argue that the multi-party model has negative effects on electoral integrity and recommend avoiding it (Birch, 2011: 124; van Ham and Garnett, 2019: 328). Reflecting on these findings, Otaola (2018: 606) suggests a partial or indirect incorporation of partisan oversight on ECs by appointing a mixture of non-partisan experts and political party representatives to the EC board or involving political parties in the member selection process without granting them membership. Compared with studies in the post-conflict and electoral violence strand, electoral management studies seldom consider other forms of inclusion beyond partisan representation, although many recognise the importance institutional culture and staff motivations have on EC conduct (Cheeseman and Klaas, 2018: 161–163; Elklit and Reynolds, 2001; Norris, 2015). One recent cross-national comparative study highlights that ECs that include their staff in decision making processes are linked with better-managed polls (James, 2019: 382), demonstrating the need for a more nuanced approach to inclusion.
Independence
Much of the recent post-conflict scholarship that underscores the importance of inclusion on independent commissions sees independence as a normative good, arguing that it provides ‘timely and lasting access to power’ to all conflicting parties (Walsh and Neudorfer, 2024: 763). However, we know from studies in the electoral management and electoral violence strand that independence does not confer assured benefits. This is particularly the case of formal (or de jure) independence—the key focus of the post-conflict scholarship. Formal independence is a collection of formal rules and laws that separate ECs from the government and other political actors in areas of their institutional design, functional mandate, budget and staff management (van Ham and Garnett, 2019: 317). While a few studies show that formal independence can have strong positive effects on electoral integrity (Hartlyn et al., 2008; van Ham and Lindberg, 2015), many more find negative or no direct effects at all (Birch, 2011: 122; Birch and van Ham, 2017: 496; Norris, 2015: 154; van Ham and Garnett, 2019: 329). The same is true for peace (Birch, 2020: 152–154). One plausible explanation of these mixed findings is that the rules and laws that underpin formal independence are often not followed in practice, leaving ECs unable or unwilling to promote electoral integrity and peace (Birch, 2020: 143; Cheeseman and Elklit, 2020: 25). Another is that there are different ways in which formal independence can be operationalised ranging from autonomy to institutional autarchy (Ackerman, 2010: 270).
Compared with formal independence, informal (or de facto) independence, which refers to impartiality or the extent an EC is free from political influence in practice, has strong positive effects on both electoral integrity and peace (Birch and van Ham, 2017: 496; Norris, 2015: 156; van Ham and Garnett, 2019: 328). However, in the case of peace, such effects are limited to state-sponsored violence because impartial ECs ensure that power alternates between different political actors, making violence a less appealing electoral strategy (Birch, 2020: 156). As neither formal nor informal independence can guarantee peace in all contexts, it is important to examine them in relation to other institutional factors and stakeholders, and the opportunities and challenges they create for fostering or subverting peace.
Towards a relational approach
There is an inherent tension between inclusion and independence: formal and informal independence seek to protect ECs from political influence, while inclusion invites all kinds of political (and public) influence into their design and functioning. To understand how this tension shapes ECs and its effects on peace, we need a relational approach. Two electoral management studies offer a possible blueprint. Cheeseman and Elklit (2020: 7–8) propose a relational framework of independence, capacity and governance to understand better how independent ECs shape electoral integrity. In this framework, the representative ‘inclusion in’ EC mechanism is part of the independence dimension along with formal and informal independence, whereas the participatory ‘inclusion by’ EC mechanism falls within the governance dimension. Although independence remains their key focus, Cheeseman and Elklit (2020: 8) argue that ‘it is the overall combination of capacity, governance and independence that determines electoral commission credibility’ which in turn shapes the overall integrity of polls. In other words, the ECs’ effects on electoral integrity are larger than the sum of their institutional design factors and behaviours, highlighting the need to study them relationally.
In contrast to Cheeseman and Elklit (2020), James (2020) proposes a relational approach that extends beyond ECs. He contextualises ECs as part of broader ‘electoral governance networks’ that he defines as ‘
While both frameworks are useful in demonstrating the need to study ECs relationally, neither directly addresses peace. To develop a tailored approach for my analysis of the inclusion–independence EC nexus and its effects on peace, I combine two key features from these frameworks. From Cheeseman and Elklit, I adopt their focus on independent ECs and the relational nature of their institutional design features and behaviours, which is crucial for understanding how inclusion and independence interact. From James, I incorporate his functional approach to ECs, which situates them within broader electoral governance networks and emphasises their outside interactions. This is useful for analysing how the inclusion–independence EC nexus interacts with other electoral stakeholders, and how these interactions affect peace. Combining these two features, my relational approach focuses on how inclusion and independence interact on ECs; how this nexus shapes ECs’ relations with other electoral stakeholders; and the effects such interactions have on peace.
Understanding the inclusion–independence nexus and its effects on peace: the Election Commission of Thailand
To examine the inclusion–independence EC nexus and its effects on peace, I use the example of the Election Commission of Thailand (ECT). The ECT is a suitable case study for two reasons. First, it operates in a conflict-prone context marked by an incomplete regime transition, intense intra-elite conflict and severe political polarisation. Thailand’s 1932 transition from absolute to constitutional monarchy triggered a protracted domestic political conflict over power and legitimacy between the traditional elite—comprising the monarchy, military and senior bureaucracy, who form the backbone of conservative Thai politics—and the emerging elites of the post-1932 era, mainly elected politicians, who represent a range of political interests from electoral authoritarianism to liberal democracy (Sombatpoonsiri, 2017: 135–136). Although this conflict has not escalated into a devastating civil war, as seen in neighbouring Cambodia (1967–1975) or Myanmar (2021–present), it has resulted in 12 successful military coups, two mass popular uprisings and more than a decade of often-violent street protests. As such, it underscores the fragile political environments in which many independent ECs operate.
Second, the ECT was part of broader power-sharing arrangements aimed at ending the domestic political conflict, but instead they intensified it. This mirrors the experience of other countries, such as Cambodia, Kenya and Zimbabwe, where dominant elite groups used power sharing to avoid losing power (Cheeseman and Tendi, 2010; Reilly, 2008: 165–166). While many scholars seek to understand power sharing and its role in peace by focusing on domestic political elites, civil society actors and international engagement (Fontana et al., 2021; Hartzell and Hoddie, 2003), independent ECs are seldom discussed in this context. In the sections that follow, I address this gap by drawing on 11 semi-structured interviews that I generated in March 2019 and May–June 2023 with key electoral stakeholders (e.g. former ECT commissioners, civil society representatives and journalists), asking questions about ECT functioning and relations with external stakeholders. I complement these primary data with publicly accessible information on current and former ECT commissioners, 1 three election monitoring reports by the Asian Network for Free Elections (ANFREL) and three constitutions. I analyse these data thematically by focusing on the ECT composition, behaviours and interactions with other electoral stakeholders, before contextualising them within broader political developments.
Origins
The ECT is a product of political reforms that followed the 1992 ‘Bloody May’ uprising against a military-installed government and culminated in the promulgation of the 1997 constitution. The constitution contained new power-sharing arrangements: on the one hand, it responded to popular demands for democracy by introducing a fully elected Senate, strengthening political parties, and enhancing executive powers; on the other, it established a closed horizontal accountability system of unelected watchdog agencies that the constitution drafters endowed with significant powers and high levels of formal independence. The drafters sought to create space for ‘good people’ to enter politics and constrain politicians, replacing the need for the traditional elite to sustain this role by military coups and extra-constitutional interventions (McCargo, 2005: 512; Tonsakulrungruang, 2023a: 163). In Thailand, the concept of ‘good people’ emphasises righteousness and morality over popular legitimacy as the key ingredient for holding public office—the traditional elite and their conservative allies have used this concept to justify military interventions and periods of non-democratic rule (Tonsakulrungruang, 2023a: 173–174).
As the key election-related agency within the new horizontal accountability system, the ECT could manage, oversee and regulate the electoral process. It could also investigate political parties and their candidates on allegations of electoral fraud and malpractice, disqualify candidates from running in electoral contests, and petition the Constitutional Court to dissolve political parties. Given such broad powers, the drafters placed considerable importance on ensuring its formal independence: they constitutionally guaranteed its existence and formal legal status, protected its decisions from an easy overturn, and granted its commissioners a security of tenure (Desatova and Alexander, 2021: 509; Tonsakulrungruang, 2023a: 163). The closed nature of the accountability system institutionalised a form of autarchy—a common challenge associated with formal independence (Ackerman, 2010: 270): neither politicians nor the public could hold the ECT accountable without securing support from the other watchdog agencies.
Compared with formal independence, the drafters placed less importance on the representative ‘inclusion in’ mechanism opting for a non-partisan expert-based membership model. This was in line with broader normative preferences in electoral management and international electoral assistance at the time: many believed that an expert-based model would allow ECs to work more constructively with different stakeholders avoiding accusations of partisanship (Reilly, 2004: 16). However, the way the 1997 constitution drafters operationalised this model severely limited all markers of the representative ‘inclusion in’ mechanism. For example, commissioners had to be at least 40 years old and educated to a bachelor level. 2 This created narrow notions of expertise that prioritised seniority over representation in areas such as gender, age and professional diversity. Put simply, the constitution drafters limited the concept of ‘good people’ to senior citizens ‘of extraordinary qualifications’ (Tonsakulrungruang, 2023a: 175). They operationalised public and political representation indirectly via the election commissioner selection process. A fully appointed Senate selected the five commissioners on the first ECT board (1997–2001) from a pool of 10 candidates: the Supreme Court judges nominated five candidates while an ad hoc committee—that comprised two judges, four university rectors and four political party representatives—nominated the remaining five. 3 Given the limited representative ‘inclusion in’ mechanisms, the first ECT board was all-male and comprised two former judges, one former civil servant, one former lecturer and one former secretary-general of the largest domestic election monitoring network P-NET/Poll-Watch.
The 1997 constitution drafters did not make any provisions for the participatory ‘inclusion by’ mechanism. The commissioners could engage in the ‘bargaining, joint decision making and collaborative problem solving’ behaviours that scholars found to have peace-promoting effects in some post-conflict settings (Lyons, 2004: 48), but if they chose not to no one could intervene—high levels of formal independence combined with virtually no accountability protected the commissioners from substantive challenges to their behaviours. Leaving the participatory ‘inclusion by’ mechanism to the commissioners meant that much depended on their personal integrity and willingness to engage with other electoral stakeholders. In this respect, the first ECT board remains an example of good practice. 4 While the commissioners’ organisation of the 2001 general election was far from perfect—their relationship with P-NET/PollWatch was tenuous at best (Hananuntasuk, 2001: 40–41)—they developed an internal ‘culture of deliberation’ to reach joint decisions, and worked closely with the media keeping the public informed of their decisions. 5 They acted on election-related complaints, suspended candidates who had engaged in fraud, and organised multiple election re-runs (Tonsakulrungruang, 2015: 6). The relative integrity and inclusiveness of their working practices do not explain fully their success. As one former commissioner noted, because this was the first ECT board, nobody expected it would perform and hence it was free from political interference. 6 This points to the broader importance of the inclusion–independence nexus. While formal independence created a new institutional space, it was not geared towards inclusion in either its representative or participatory form. Informal independence was crucial in enabling the commissioners to be inclusive, which was in turn a function of their personal integrity and willingness. Their actions helped sustain the 1997 power-sharing arrangements, contributing to the overall maintenance of peace.
Politicisation
The relative inclusiveness, impartiality and integrity of the first ECT board contrasted sharply with the second ECT board (2001–2006). After Thaksin Shinawatra and his Thai Rak Thai (TRT) party won the 2001 election, Thaksin took advantage of the 1997 constitution and its transitional provisions. He used his influence over a newly elected Senate to pack the horizontal accountability system with his loyalists (Kuhonta, 2008: 382–389; Tonsakulrungruang, 2015: 6). The system’s closed nature was an enabling factor in this politicisation: with the help of the Senate, Thaksin could replace members of all watchdog agencies, including the ECT, knowing that no one could hold them accountable.
The involvement of the politicised Senate in the selection of the second ECT board altered its inclusion–independence nexus in two important ways. First, it decreased the commissioners’ inclusiveness. The representative ‘inclusion in’ mechanism remained unchanged insofar as the new commissioners were high-ranking men from a handful of professions, but at least four were of questionable integrity. One was a retired army general whom the first ECT board disqualified from the 2000 Senate election (he was replaced in 2002); two were former civil servants—one under investigation for corruption and one accused of printing fake ballots; and one was a former judge whose promotion did not secure royal approval (Kuhonta, 2008: 387). This led to an immediate shift in the participatory ‘inclusion by’ mechanism: the new commissioners refused to provide the media with access to parts of the ECT headquarters and declared a month-long moratorium on press conferences (Wong and Hananuntasuk, 2005: 25). They also stalled the accreditation of the regional election monitoring body ANFREL in the run-up to the 2005 election (Wong and Hananuntasuk, 2005: 48).
Second, it reduced the ECT’s informal independence enabling its capture by Thaksin. Thaksin enjoyed a cult following among rural and lower-class urban voters who dominated the electorate, but his popularity and power-aggrandising tendencies began to alienate the traditional elite and most middle and upper class urban Thais (McCargo, 2005: 512; Sinpeng, 2021: 88–93). Although signs of anti-Thaksin sentiments were visible prior to the 2005 election, TRT’s landslide victory became a powerful catalyst (Sinpeng, 2021: 45). The ECT also contributed: the new commissioners did not act on complaints concerning TRT and quickly certified all winning candidates, ignoring evidence of electoral cheating (Kuhonta, 2008: 387). This made Thaksin opponents, who became known as ‘yellow shirts’, feel like they were faced with a ‘permanent exclusion from power’ (Sinpeng, 2021: 45): they were unable to get rid of Thaksin electorally or hold him to account by way of the ECT. They began to mobilise by increasingly disruptive street protests from mid-2005, provoking counter-protests from Thaksin supporters. The commissioners’ handling of the 2006 snap election that Thaksin called in response to these protests, and which the opposition boycotted, fuelled the volatile situation further. This was especially after it was revealed that the commissioners sat on one of their subcommittee’s investigation reports that found TRT guilty of paying a handful of small parties to contest it to meet the minimum requirements for a valid election (Kuhonta, 2008: 388). This would have provided sufficient legal grounds for the TRT dissolution.
The 2006 election created an intractable political situation: a highly popular yet controversial prime minister was facing an increasingly hostile opposition, but his capture of the ECT along with the rest of the horizontal accountability system prevented his opponents from challenging him by constitutional means. This created conditions for the traditional elite to intervene extra-constitutionally (Sinpeng, 2021: 121–126). After then reigning King Bhumibol (r. 1946–2016) publicly called on the judges to resolve the political stalemate, the Constitutional Court used the ECT’s partisanship and instances of technical management to annul the 2006 election, while the Supreme Court jailed three commissioners for malfeasance (McCargo, 2019: 85; Tonsakulrungruang, 2016: 178–179). A few months later, the military staged a coup leaving the country deeply polarised over support for the ousted prime minister.
While the anti-Thaksin ‘yellow shirts’ along with the monarchy and the military played a key role in the breakdown at the 1997 power-sharing arrangements, the ECT also contributed. The inclusion–independence ECT nexus is crucial in explaining how: although the ECT’s formal independence remained unchanged, the politicised commissioner selection process closed off the space that enabled the first ECT board to be relatively inclusive. It resulted in a new board of commissioners who were of lower personal integrity and did not care about inclusion or peace. In the absence of an effective built-in ‘inclusion by’ mechanism, the new commissioners were free to promote less inclusive working practices. Combined with low informal independence, they helped create an environment in which a peaceful resolution of the rising political tensions became impossible.
Weaponisation
The 2006 military coup became ‘a turning point in the conception and deployment of the watchdog agencies’ (Tonsakulrungruang, 2023a: 164 and 165). The junta-appointed drafters of the 2007 constitution recognised the potential of the closed horizontal accountability system—particularly the ECT and the Constitutional Court—in ousting Thaksin-aligned governments, so they strengthened it and insulated it from politics further (Tonsakulrungruang, 2023a: 164–165). In the ECT case, the drafters altered its inclusion–independence nexus: they limited the role of the politicians and the public in the commissioner selection process, thereby reducing the indirect representative ‘inclusion in’ mechanism. The now partly appointed Senate could no longer select commissioners, only approve them; judges dominated the selection process. The Supreme Court selected two commissioners. An ad hoc committee that consisted of three judges, two political and two judicial representatives selected the remaining three. 7 On the surface, this was not at odds with formal independence: many electoral management and international electoral assistance experts condone the involvement of judges to ensure professionalism and impartiality on independent ECs (Bado, 2023: 11), but Thai judges have long been loyal to the traditional elite ‘endorsing the legality of every [military] coup since 1947’ (Tonsakulrungruang, 2023a: 164–165). Their increased involvement in the commissioner selection process enabled the traditional elite to capture the ECT (Alderman, 2024: 9; Tonsakulrungruang, 2023a: 165). The result was a lasting shift towards a ‘conservative’ ECT mindset based on non-transparent, majoritarian decision making and limited interactions with other electoral stakeholders. 8 Another defining feature was its strong anti-Thaksin orientation (Tonsakulrungruang, 2023a: 165). This put the ECT at odds with many voters as Thaksin-aligned parties continued to dominate electorally, fuelling the deep-seated political polarisation over Thaksin in the post-coup years.
The 2006 junta appointed the third ECT board (2006–2013) well before the king officially promulgated the new military-drafted constitution, but they honoured it in spirit. The new board had one female and four male commissioners, all sharing the same conservative mindset due to their legal backgrounds. This negated any gains made from the inclusion of the first female commissioner, highlighting the perfunctory potential of some representation markers (Neudorfer and Walsh, 2025), and had negative effects on the participatory ‘inclusion by’ mechanism. The new commissioners engaged in a damaging smear campaign against P-NET and refused to allocate funds for its monitoring activities (Cooper, 2008: 33–34). They also publicly accused the European Union of seeking to infringe on Thailand’s sovereignty by requesting to observe the first post-coup general election in 2007 (Cooper, 2008: 33). As two interviewees noted, the post-2006 ECT commissioners displayed increasing mistrust towards election observers and civil society organisations (CSOs). 9 They saw them as enemies who needed to be excluded, not stakeholders with whom they should engage. While their organisation of the 2007 and the 2011 general elections was relatively impartial, they were instrumental in helping the traditional elite reorganise power outside the ballot box, displaying low informal independence overall. With the help of the Constitutional Court, they dissolved Thaksin’s TRT party along with two smaller parties for joint electoral malpractice during the 2006 snap election. This resulted in a 5-year politics ban of more than 100 party executives, including Thaksin. They also orchestrated a dissolution of the Thaksin-aligned People’s Power Party that won the 2007 election, paving way for the Democrat Party to form an unelected coalition government, which was the traditional elite’s preferred political option (Tonsakulrungruang, 2023a: 165). The repeated exclusion of Thaksin-aligned parties from power provoked a backlash from the pro-Thaksin ‘red shirts’, culminating in one of the deadliest street clashes in modern Thai history that resulted in more than 90 deaths and close to 2000 injuries (Sombatpoonsiri, 2017: 138).
The selection of the fourth ECT board (2013–2018) complied with the provisions of the 2007 military-drafted constitution. The board’s representative ‘inclusion in’ mechanism was low: it was all-male and comprised three former judges, one former lecturer cum CSO member, and one former politician. Despite their increased professional diversity, the new commissioners shared the same conservative mindset as their predecessors, displaying no interest in fostering the participatory ‘inclusion by’ mechanism. They also displayed low informal independence from the traditional elite, fuelling rather than diffusing the domestic political conflict. Although their tenure started after the government of Yingluck Shinawatra, Thaksin’s younger sister dissolved the parliament to appease increasingly violent street protests by anti-Thaksin ‘yellow shirts’, they engaged in a public ‘tug of war’ with the caretaker government to postpone the 2014 snap election (McCargo and Desatova, 2016: 78). When the caretaker government refused to budge and the opposition boycotted the poll, they refused to fund P-NET’s domestic election monitoring activities, even withholding its permit (McCargo and Desatova, 2016: 84). More crucially, they did not prevent disruptions of the candidate registration process and the voting, although these were widely predictable, resulting in 30 election-related deaths and unprecedented levels of intimidation and non-lethal violence (McCargo and Desatova, 2016: 78–79). The commissioners’ ambivalence and inaction also meant that the voting did not meet a crucial legal requirement of being completed in one day, creating a pretext for the Constitutional Court to annul the election and for the military to stage another coup.
The inter-coup period illustrates that a relatively small change in the inclusion–independence EC nexus can lead to lasting shifts in EC behaviour that can have negative effects on peace. In the ECT case, the reduction in the indirect ‘inclusion in’ mechanism on the commissioner selection process enabled the traditional elite to capture the ECT by ensuring that only people with the same ‘conservative’ mindset would serve as commissioners. This translated into low informal independence and exclusionary behaviours of both the third and the fourth ECT boards. While the military and anti-Thaksin ‘yellow shirts’ were responsible for much of the exclusion, political instability, and violence of the inter-coup period, the ECT partisanship and exclusionary behaviours also played a prominent role by fuelling resentment among pro-Thaksin ‘red shirts’ and letting the 2014 electoral violence unfold.
Entrenchment
The 2014 military coup and the 5-year junta rule entrenched the exclusionary ECT behaviours. The junta kept the fourth ECT board intact for 4 years: while the commissioners displayed exclusionary behaviours during the inter-coup period, several interviewees noted that they became even more insular after the coup. 10 They also continued to display low levels of informal independence from the traditional elite by helping the junta push a new military-drafted constitution through a popular referendum, ‘acting as a promotional agency [. . .] rather than a neutral overseer’ (McCargo et al., 2017: 70). This was not surprising given that the 2017 constitution granted far-reaching powers to the horizontal accountability system: it became easier for the ECT and the Constitutional Court to dissolve political parties, disqualify candidates and remove a minister or a prime minister from office. 11 Politicians now also faced a 10-year as opposed to 5-year politics ban (Desatova and Alexander, 2021: 511; Tonsakulrungruang, 2023a: 166).
The 2017 military-drafted constitution altered the inclusion–independence ECT nexus once again. It increased the size of the ECT board from five to seven commissioners and raised their qualification requirements. For example, only professors, CEOs, heads of governmental agencies, or CSO members with over 20 years’ experience were eligible to become ECT commissioners. 12 This limited the already low representative ‘inclusion in’ mechanism even further, reinforcing the narrow notions of expertise based on seniority of an increasingly small pool of ‘good people’. The constitution also altered the commissioner selection process: the Supreme Court judges were responsible for selecting two commissioners, while an ad hoc committee selected the remaining five. The Senate retained its reduced approver role. 13 The new organic law on the ECT specified the ad hoc selection committee as comprising two judges, two political representatives, and one representative each for the Constitutional Court and the remaining watchdog agencies. Although this ostensively reintroduced a level of indirect political and public representation, it did not improve the representative ‘inclusion in’ mechanism. The Constitutional Court and watchdog agency representatives had to meet the same qualification criteria as prospective ECT commissioners, while their selection by these agencies guaranteed that they would share the same conservative mindset, limiting wider representation and distribution of political loyalties. The fifth ECT board (2018 to present) comprised seven high-ranking men: three former civil servants, two former judges, one former lawyer, and one former university lecturer. The junta-appointed National Legislative Assembly, a temporary unicameral legislature introduced after the 2014 coup, approved their selection. This guaranteed that the commissioners would have no informal independence from the junta. 14 The result was a familiar pattern of partisanship and exclusion, with the commissioners showing no interest in fostering the participatory ‘inclusion by’ mechanism. During their organisation of the first post-coup election in 2019, they tilted the electoral playing field in favour of the main pro-junta Palang Pracharat Party (PPRP), refused to fund P-NET along with other domestic election monitoring groups, and dragged their feet issuing permits to domestic and regional observers (Desatova and Alexander, 2021: 514–516). One observer group received its permit just 11 days ahead of the vote, giving it insufficient time to prepare. 15 Together with the Constitutional Court, they dissolved one Thaksin-aligned party 4 days into the advanced voting. When the Thaksin-aligned Pheu Thai (PT) party won, they manipulated the seat allocation formula to help PPRP form a coalition government (Desatova and Alexander, 2021: 513). Within a year, they orchestrated a dissolution of the Future Forward Party (FFP), a progressive youth-oriented political party that campaigned for a radical change of Thailand’s political status quo and was the third largest party in the parliament following the 2019 election. Both party dissolutions were based on tenuous legal grounds and resulted in a 10-year politics ban for altogether 30 executives (Desatova and Alexander, 2021: 515–516; McCargo and Chattharakul, 2020: 45–47 and 150–154). The commissioners’ handling of the 2019 election led to the first-ever popular protests against the ECT and a wide-spread use of the derogatory ‘Election Cheaters of Thailand’ moniker and social media hashtags, such as #WhyDoWeHaveECT and #ECTMustBeJailed (Desatova and Alexander, 2021: 505–506). The FFP dissolution triggered a wave of peaceful student protests at university campuses that quickly turned into large youth-led pro-democracy street protests, challenging even the previously sacrosanct monarchy (Lertchoosakul, 2021; Sombatpoonsiri, 2021). Growing state repression and lawfare supressed these protests by late 2021, signalling that the traditional elite were not going to tolerate them.
A slimmed down version of the fifth ECT board organised the 2023 election: one commissioner retired in late 2022 and was not replaced in time for the poll. Compared with 2019, many interviewees believed that the six commissioners enjoyed more informal independence from the traditional elite. 16 This was due to several factors: an official disbanding of the 2014 junta; a public fall-out between two former junta leaders that resulted in the PPRP fragmentation; and a ‘secret’ power-sharing deal between Thaksin and the traditional elite (McCargo, 2024: 89–92). The commissioners’ increased informal independence helped create space for more collaboration between the ECT and other electoral stakeholders, improving the participatory ‘inclusion by’ mechanism. A newly appointed secretary-general who forged links with CSOs, particularly the highly respected iLaw, led much of this collaboration. 17
Within the broader ECT structures, the secretary-general has limited decision making powers and no impact on the behaviour of the board. His increased cooperation with iLaw yielded mostly symbolic wins. 18 For example, he attended the pre-election CSO-led Code of Conduct signing ceremony, during which several parties pledged to campaign fairly, but the board never endorsed it. Other notable absences included PPRP and its ultra-conservative splinter, the United Thai Nation (UTN) party. Despite enjoying increased levels of informal independence, the six commissioners seemed reluctant to back publicly something that did not secure the support of parties affiliated with the traditional elite. Their relations with politicians and the media also continued to falter, demonstrating that they were not all that interested in fostering the participatory ‘inclusion by’ mechanism. Several interviewees complained that it was extremely difficult to obtain even routine information from the commissioners, let alone get them to listen to stakeholder concerns. 19 One journalist revealed that they had to rely on lower level ECT officials to leak essential election-related information. 20
When the election delivered a surprise victory of the progressive Move Forward Party (MFP), a direct FFP successor, the commissioners reverted to their usual exclusionary and partisan practices. This was part of wider institutional efforts aimed at blocking the MFP from assuming power as its victory was unacceptable to the traditional elite (McCargo, 2024: 92). In quick succession, the commissioners petitioned the Constitutional Court to disqualify the MFP leader from his member of parliament (MP) status on fabricated charges, while the junta-appointed Senate blocked him from becoming the prime minister in a joint parliamentary vote (Tonsakulrungruang, 2023b). This enabled the Thaksin-aligned PT, which was placed close second, to take over the government formation by entering a power-sharing deal with the pro-military PPRP and UTN and eight other parties. In exchange, the traditional elite allowed Thaksin to return to Thailand from a self-imposed exile, commuting his prison sentence for abuse of power during his premiership before rescinding it by way of a royal pardon (McCargo, 2024: 94–95). Within a year, and with the help of the Constitutional Court, the commissioners orchestrated the MFP dissolution leading to a 10-year politics ban for 11 party executives. While the MFP dissolution did not trigger a fresh round of youth-led street protests, it refuelled the domestic political conflict prolonging Thailand’s political fragility for years to come.
While the military and the rest of the traditional elite subverted all prospects for peace in the post-coup period, the ECT also played a prominent role. The constitutional changes to its inclusion–independence nexus highlighted its ongoing importance to the traditional elite, who sought to entrench its partisan and exclusionary behaviours to ensure a lasting control over Thailand’s political environment. Despite the decreased ‘inclusion in’ mechanism, which reproduced the fifth ECT board’s conservative mindset, higher levels of informal independence during the 2023 election created some space for the participatory ‘inclusion by’ mechanism. This demonstrates how crucial informal independence is for participatory forms of inclusion, which as the ECT case shows can also originate at lower levels of institutional organisation. However, as the increased informal independence was short-lived, the more participatory ECT behaviours had few positive effects on peace. The low representative ‘inclusion in’ mechanism allowed a swift return to partisanship whenever the traditional elite needed the ECT to intervene on their behalf. Meanwhile, high formal independence—which remained unchanged since the ECT inception—shielded the commissioners from accountability at the expense of broader political stability and peace.
Conclusion
ECs play an important role in peace, but our understanding of when they contribute to or subvert it remains limited. For many years, many civil society actors, policy experts and practitioners in electoral management and international electoral assistance circles assumed that establishing ‘independent’ ECs provided the solution, but dominant assumptions surrounding their alleged benefits did not always hold when scholars tested them against empirical evidence. More recently, the answer began shifting towards inclusion as several post-conflict studies have shown that inclusion on independent commissions is positively associated with peace. While there is some evidence that both inclusion and independence on ECs can have positive effects on peace, much of this research treats them in isolation. In this article, I developed a relational approach to the study of ECs and their effects on peace by focusing on their inclusion–independence nexus. I applied this approach to a single qualitative case study of the ECT offering a close analysis of how its inclusion–independence nexus contributed to the deterioration of Thailand’s domestic political conflict over the past 27 years (1997–2024).
Overall, the findings show that the inclusion–independence nexus might not offer a straightforward recipe for peace when it comes to ECs. This is because there are certain aspects of the inclusion–independence EC nexus that power-hungry elites can weaponise to subvert inclusion and ultimately peace. One is linked to the underlying ethos of formal independence and its preference for an expert-based membership model that seeks to exclude rather than include politicians—and in some cases also public—from matters pertaining to ECs. The ECT case illustrates that it is relatively easy to design this model to narrow the pool of ‘experts’ who are eligible to serve on the commission in ways that prioritise political loyalties over personal integrity, resulting in the development of an exclusionary and partisan EC mindset and working practices that do not bode well for peace. Another is linked to accountability. By their very nature independent ECs enjoy a level of formal independence, but if this is not complemented with effective accountability mechanisms, they might not create new or reformed institutional spaces that can foster collaboration. Instead, they can become closed off and unaccountable as was the case of the ECT, working against rather than towards peace. Crucially, the findings showed that greater informal EC independence went hand in hand with greater participatory forms of inclusion—or the ‘inclusion by’ EC mechanism. Although this did not always lead to positive peace outcomes, these findings highlight the opportunities and challenges the inclusion–independence nexus creates for peace. Future research on ECs, and other types of independent commissions in conflict-prone and post-conflict settings, would benefit from adopting this relational approach.
Footnotes
Funding
ORCID iD
