BANGKOK (AP) — Voters in Thailand headed to the polls Sunday in an election hailed as a crucial opportunity for change, eight years after current Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha seized power in a coup in 2014. Now he is running against the daughter of the politician who is the nemesis of the army.
The opposition Pheu Thai party, led by Paetongtarn Shinawatra, was expected to win at least a large number of MPs in the 500-seat lower house. After depositing her ballot, the candidate herself said that all votes were important to achieve change in Thailand, and that she had high hopes for the final result.
But the leader of the next government does not depend only on Sunday’s vote. The prime minister will be elected in July in a plenary session of the House of Representatives and the 250-seat Senate. The winner needs at least 376 votes, and it is unlikely that any party will achieve it alone.
Pheu Thai was the party with the most votes in the last elections, in 2019, but its arch rival, the military-backed Palang Pracharath Party, managed to form a coalition with Prayuth as prime minister. He won the unanimous support of the Senate, whose members share the army’s conservative mentality and were appointed by the military government after the Prayuth coup.
The president is running for re-election, although this year the support of the army is divided between two parties. Prayuth is endorsed by the United Thai Nation Party. His deputy prime minister, Prawit Wongsuwan, another former general, is the leader of Palang Pracharath.
Prayuth is accused of a floundering economy, mishandling of the pandemic and frustrating democratic reforms, something especially important for younger voters. He also encouraged people to vote when he went to his polling place.
“The rise in the youth vote and general awareness of the damage caused by the military regime are key factors in determining the outcome of this election,” said Tyrell Haberkorn, a Thailand specialist at the University of Wisconsin. “After nine years of military rule, the people are ready for a change, even those who weren’t interested in stirring up the waters before.”
Pheu Thai joins a series of parties associated with millionaire populist Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted as prime minister by a military coup in 2006. Paetongtarn Shinawatra is his daughter. The candidate’s aunt, Yingluck Shinawatra, who served as prime minister in 2011, was ousted in the Prayuth-led coup.
Pheu Thai and Paetongtarn, the most popular of the three registered prime ministerial candidates, are far ahead of the competition in opinion polls. But there were no signs that the country’s military-backed ruling class would take a kindly look at them.
“I think that the conservative monarchist side, which defends the army, the monarchy, is against the wall. Change is coming and they have to find a way to deal with it,” said Thitinan Pongsudhirak, a political scientist at Bangkok’s Chulalongkorn University.
That means Pheu Thai will have to be careful after Sunday’s election in choosing potential coalition partners.
The Progress Party is second in the polls and shares his aspiration to stop the army. But he openly calls for small reforms in the monarchy, something unacceptable to most conservatives, who see the institution as sacrosanct, and scares off other potential coalition partners.
Many believe that Pheu Thai should look in the other direction and seek a partner in the Palang Pracharath Party, and its leader, Prawit, less associated with the 2014 coup and hardliners Prayuth has imposed.