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‘clientelism,’ in which the voters as clients, accepts patronage from the machine so
that they are not excluded from local networks and power structures.

Theoretically, this research challenges previous academic works that maintain the
belief that the roles of political machines and patron-clientele systems have declined

and that democracy has been further consolidated. This is due, in part, to the
understanding that people can rely on regular policy-based election campaigns as
the main form of local political bargaining. However, the 2020 PAO election in
Samutprakarn presents different findings. The return of an authoritarian government

in 2014 and the incomplete transition to democracy provided Samutprakarn’s old
political machine an opportunity to reestablish its local power, which had been
defeated by the populist governmental regime for over a decade. In addition,
Samutprakarn’s geographical advantage of being adjacent to Bangkok ensures that it

will benefit from the effects of development, such as hosting a new international
airport and serving as the connecting point to the Eastern Seaboard Development
Region special economic zone. This is an additional economic opportunity that the
old political machine can exploit in its effort to establish itself as a new form of

political economic machine. The new machine then employs the developmental
projects and budgets as a crucial resource with which to connect to local power
networks as an active partner of the machine. Hence, the operations of the new

political economic machine can produce a more flexible patron-clientele system and
can connect to broader networks than the old form of political machine, which was
based on money-based politics and violence.

3) The 2020 Samutprakarn PAO election saw a 6.86% voter increase compared to the
PAO election of 2011, demonstrating changed political behavior and a presence of
influential factors. The number of voters in mixed urban-rural constituencies and rural
constituencies is higher than in the urban one. The implication is that voters in the

urban area are less active than in the mixed urban-rural and rural areas. Through
survey of voter attitudes, this study found that the most influential factors were the
personal profile of the candidate and the affiliation of the candidate with local

political groups. The retrospective voting model is less applicable to the voting
situation in Samutprakarn’s PAO election.

4) In evaluating the successes and flaws of the 2020 PAO election in Samutprakarn, this
study found sizable evidence of election complaints and irregularities as published
across several media channels. However, the Election Commission did not take these
election irregularities into consideration and approved the results of this controversial

โครงการศึกษาการเลือกตั้งระดับท้องถิ่น ปี 2563: การเลือกตั้งสมาชิกสภาองค์การบริหารส่วนจังหวัดและนายกองค์การบริหารส่วนจังหวัดสมุทรปราการ ฉ