Thailand elections: Vote counting shows Thaksin’s daughter as frontrunner

Thailand’s general election has ended, and the daughter of exiled former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has become the front-runner.

The election is said to be a turning point for a country that has experienced more than a dozen military coups in its recent history.

Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, the army general who led the last coup in 2014, is seeking reappointment.

However, he faces strong challenges from two anti-military parties.

After the polls closed at 5:00 p.m. GMT on Sunday, the counting of votes began, with voting beginning at 8:00 a.m. 01:00 GMT at 95,000 polling places across the country.

About 50 million people are expected to vote to elect the 500 members of the House of Representatives, and about 2 million voted early.

Preliminary vote tallies showed Pheu Thai Party (for Thais) leading with 6.45% of the vote, followed by another opposition party, Muward.

Leading the election is the Pheu Thai Party, led by Thaksin’s daughter Petongtarn Shinawatra.

The 36-year-old leverages her father’s extensive patronage network to keep populist messages that resonate with rural, low-income communities across the country.

A telecoms billionaire, Thaksin is beloved by many low-income Thais but greatly unpopular with the royalist elite. He was ousted in a military coup in 2006, when his opponents accused him of corruption. He has denied the charges and has lived in exile in London and Dubai since 2008.

“Eight years later, I think the public wants better politics, better solutions, not just a coup,” Petontarun told the BBC in a recent interview.

Move Forward, led by 42-year-old former tech executive Pita Rimjaroenrat, has also surged in the polls. Young, progressive and ambitious candidates are campaigning with a simple but powerful message: ‘Thailand needs to change’.

“And this change is not really another coup, because it is a setback change, by reforming the military and the monarchy for a democratic future with better economic performance. Yes,” said Thitinan Ponsudirak of the Institute for Security and International Studies. at Chulalongkorn University.

Meanwhile, Prayuth, 69, is lagging behind in the polls. He seized power from the government of Thaksin’s sister Yingluck Shinawatra in 2014 after months of turmoil.

Elections were held in Thailand in 2019, and the results showed that no clear political party won a majority.

A few weeks later, a pro-military party came to power and nominated Prayuth as prime minister in a process the opposition called unfair.

The following year, a controversial court ruling dissolved Future Forward, the predecessor of Move Forward, which had performed well thanks to the enthusiastic support of young voters.

This sparked six months of mass protests calling for military and monarchy reforms.

With nearly 70 parties and several large parties participating in the election, it is unlikely that any one party will win a full majority of seats in the House of Representatives.

But even if one party were to win a majority or form a majority coalition government, the political system and various other non-electoral powers inherited by the military-drafted 2017 constitution would remain in place for that party. may prevent employment.

The constitution, written while Thailand was under military rule, established a 250-seat appointed Senate that could vote on the choice of the next prime minister and government.

All senators were appointed by the coup leaders, so they always voted for the current military-aligned government, never for the opposition.

Technically, therefore, a party without Senate backing would need to win a supermajority of 376 out of 500 seats, an unachievable goal.