The People's Party and Prime Minister's performance report

Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra outlined her government’s plans to uplift the country next year in a live televised speech marking her first three months in office on Thursday.

Under the theme "2025: Empowering Thais, a Real Possibility", Paetongtarn vowed to push ahead with populist policies including a village fund, 20-baht flat fare for urban rail travel, low-cost housing, and the 10,000-baht digital wallet scheme. She also promised to boost state education with scholarships for talented students at leading foreign universities.

The policies are designed to stimulate an economy dragged down by high household debt, weak spending and a credit crunch. Paetongtarn said the initiatives introduced by her predecessor, Srettha Thavisin, would bear fruit as “edible policies” next year.

However, the opposition People’s Party (PP) criticised the speech, arguing the Pheu Thai-led government had failed to meet public expectations and made minimal progress despite being nearly halfway through its term.

PP deputy leader Sirikanya Tansakul said the "90-day review" was misleading, pointing out the government had actually been in office for one year and four months. She added that Paetongtarn’s review of her administration’s accomplishments mainly consisted of 11 instances of assigning tasks to ministers and offered little detailed insight.

“The prime minister’s remarks today were broad and lacked detail, resembling a second round of policy declarations rather than an actual performance review,” she said.

Sirikanya also criticised the government’s flagship policies – soft power initiatives and the digital wallet programme – as showing no significant progress. 

PP leader Natthaphong Ruengpanyawut labelled the Digital Wallet scheme as the administration’s “biggest failure”. He said phase 1 was rolled out with underwhelming economic impact, and plans for phases 2 and 3 lack clarity, with only phase 3 involving digital disbursements. This deviation from campaign promises indicates multiple missed targets, he added.

Natthaphong said the government must build confidence that its policies will genuinely create opportunities for Thais amid the new global dynamics of 2025.

"What I hoped to see from the prime minister’s address was a commitment to civil service reform. While the PM discussed the digital economy and digital government, she failed to address critical issues such as anticorruption measures and decentralisation," he said.

He also criticised Paetongtarn’s plan to combat the drug trade.

“All that was mentioned was the creation of a platform for reporting drug-related complaints. This is grossly insufficient.”

He noted that much-needed education reform was also absent from her speech, with no mention of the Education Act or curriculum updates.

Turning to energy policy, Natthaphong said the PM had neglected to address the pressing issue of revoking the 3,600 MW renewable energy concessions. The noted that the energy minister had submitted a letter on the matter to the National Energy Policy Committee (NEPC), chaired by Paetongtarn, but no resolution was in sight.

On foreign policy, the PP leader said Thailand’s stance on the global trade war expected next year lacked clarity. The United States is poised to raise tariffs on countries with which it has trade deficits, including Thailand.

“I want to see the prime minister view Thailand not as a ‘small country’, as Srettha Thavisin once described it, but as a middle power with bargaining leverage,” Natthaphong stated.

His statements offered a preview of the no-confidence debate against the government, which the opposition party plans for the first quarter of next year. The “Orange” camp's grilling sessions are known for their sharp rhetoric backed by hard-hitting information.

Time is ticking for the prime minister and her Cabinet to make progress on resolving the myriad issues raised by the opposition.