BANGKOK (Reuters) – Many Thais queued on Sunday, a few for hours, to vote early in parliamentary elections scheduled for March 24, the United States of America’s first because of a 2014 navy coup.
“It feels correct to apply our democratic right,” stated 29-yr-antique Adulwit Sinthusiri, one of the 2.6 million Thais who registered for the one-day early voting.
People who registered to vote on Sunday but did not accomplish that forfeit the right to participate in the election.
A overall of fifty-two million Thais elderly 18 and above are eligible to vote.
The contest extensively pits the birthday celebration of junta chief Prayuth Chan-Ocha, who led the 2014 coup while he changed into army leader, against populist events dependent on ousted prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra and also parties against extending the navy’s dominance in the government.
Several other new and smaller parties should hold the key to a coalition government after the vote. Still, Prayuth’s birthday celebration holds a built-in advantage because the junta is appointing the 250-seat Senate, giving it a head start in securing a majority vote of the mixed parliament needed to select a prime minister.
The election is for the 500-seat House of Representatives.
The adult stated he turned into now not impressed with the authorities’ performance over the past five years and believed new events like Future Forward, an anti-junta institution headed by forty-year-old automobile components billionaire Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit, may want to make a difference.
Many Thais want Prayuth, who became prime minister after the coup and then retired from the army, to live on, effectively putting an elected martial democracy.
“Prayuth is a superb man … He is straightforward and does the right things for the United States,” said Nawarat Phuyungwattana, sixty-three, from the southern province of Narathiwat.
Pro-Thaksin events have campaigned on rules that they stated would improve the economic system and boost prices of rice and rubber.
Parties affiliated with Thaksin, who is in self-imposed exile after conviction on a corruption charge, have won all elections since 2001 on populist rules like a universal healthcare scheme.
The army overthrew seasoned Thaksin governments with coups in 2006 and again in 2014, while it toppled one led by Thaksin’s sister, Yingluck Shinawatra.
