People’s Party Taps Tech CEO to Drive Thailand’s New Economy 2026

Thailand’s centrist People’s Party has turned to technology entrepreneur Isriya Paireepairit to front its push for a “New Economy”, hoping a boardroom mindset can jolt a sluggish bureaucracy, woo foreign capital and reassure voters worried about stagnating wages. The move signals a change in playbook: instead of haggling over cabinet seats after the polls, the party is parading would-be ministers months in advance and spelling out how each will be measured.

Quick Take

• Isriya Paireepairit, former LINE Man Wongnai executive, will oversee the party’s New Economy 2026 platform.

• The blueprint bundles 53 policy planks across 7 themes, from data-driven welfare to open-access power grids.

• Economists like Pipat Luangnaruemitchai (KKP) and Burin Adulwattana (Kasikorn Research) say structural fixes, not quick cash handouts, will decide Thailand’s competitiveness.

• The party casts its early “shadow cabinet” as proof it can avert coalition gridlock that has haunted recent governments.

A Tech CEO Swaps Apps for Politics

Isriya’s résumé reads more like Silicon Valley than Sanam Luang. The 5th-ranked party-list hopeful built food-delivery giant LINE Man Wongnai into a unicorn contender before exiting last year. He tells supporters that years spent scaling platforms taught him “speed, transparency and relentless user focus”—qualities he insists are missing from Thailand’s ritual of siloed ministries.

The People’s Party is betting that the start-up ethos will resonate with urban middle-class voters who watched Indonesia and Vietnam outpace Thailand’s growth rate. "Good fundamentals, bad management" is the slogan he repeats at rallies, promising to treat the civil service like an API-powered platform rather than a maze of forms.

Inside the “New Economy 2026” Playbook

The manifesto spreads over 7 broad fronts, each peppered with deadlines and KPIs:

SME turbo-charge – an expanded คนละครึ่งพลัส e-voucher, receipt-lottery nudges, and a ฿50 B credit-guarantee pool under a new Data Bureau scoring system.

Cost-of-living safety net – universal child grant, tiered pension, capped BTS-MRT fares at ฿8-45 and solar-roof micro-loans.

Future industries – defence tech, space hardware, EVs, plus a national semiconductor ecosystem anchored in the EEC.

Energy sweep – end monopoly pricing, allow households to sell excess power, and pilot bill-indexed green loans.

Fiscal shake-up – genuinely progressive tax bands, real-time budget dashboards, and a three-layer assault on “grey capital” & online scams.

Global trade reboot – court the Global South and niche tourists with high-spend hobbies from cycling to gastronomy.

Digital upskilling – state-funded life-long learning marketplaces and mega-projects to reskill labour for AI-heavy supply chains.

Every bullet point is wrapped in the idea of a รัฐแพลตฟอร์ม—the state as a service layer that outsiders can plug into. The notion mirrors Estonia’s e-government rails but is marketed here as “Thai, equal, world-ready”.

Can Bureaucratic Silos Be Hacked?

Seasoned public-policy watchers are sceptical yet intrigued. Thailand’s last three coalitions split portfolios along party lines, making policy data-sharing nearly impossible. Isriya argues that naming a cross-party operations board before the election pressures rivals to sign on or explain why they will not.

His critics warn that agencies still answer to the civil-service hierarchy, not technocrats parachuted from business. “Without civil-service exam reform, you’ll hit the same walls,” a former finance-ministry permanent secretary told us, though conceding that a single digital ID spine could reduce corruption-prone paperwork.

Market Mood: Hope With a Side of Caution

The Thai benchmark index has lagged Jakarta and Manila by >10 % over the past year, reflecting investor unease about stop-start politics and a baht stuck near ฿36 per US$. Analysts at KKP applaud the plan to widen tax bands but flag the budget restraints of an ageing society. Kasikorn Research stresses that throwing money at consumption won’t help unless productivity climbs in tandem. Both houses emphasise that regulatory certainty—not stimulus alone—will unlock FDI.

Election Clock and What to Watch

Campaign rules allow parties to unveil cabinet line-ups early, but voters have learned to be wary after previous “dream teams” dissolved in horse-trading. Should the People’s Party secure enough seats, investors will watch:

• Who gets Finance and Energy, two ministries tied to Isriya’s pillars.

• Whether the promised “open data” decrees appear in the first 100 days.

• The fate of the bill-indexed loans, which clash with existing central-bank rules.

For now, Isriya is touring industrial provinces selling the message that Thailand can still climb the value chain. “We’re late, not lost,” he says, adding that the real contest is not ideology but management. Thai voters will soon decide whether a tech-led People’s Government is the upgrade they crave or just another version update that fixes some bugs but keeps the old operating system intact.