However, early Monday, MFP was forecast to win 113 of the 400 constituency seats, just ahead of Pheu Thai’s 112. Another 100 seats might be allocated to parties on a proportional basis.
Sunday’s vote alone is not going to determine who will head the following government. The prime minister might be elected in July at a joint meeting of the House and the 250-member Senate. The winner must get no less than 376 votes, and neither party is prone to achieve this by itself.
Voter Pakorn Adulpan, 85, said he was impressed with the standard of this yr’s contest.
“I am hopeful because compared to previous elections, there is strong competition between many talented candidates,” he said.
A 90 percent turnout in last Sunday’s early round of voting shows the electorate is searching for change, however the opposition faces an uphill battle to secure power under a 2017 structure written by the junta.
Thais voted in large numbers after an election campaign that pitted a young generation anticipating change against a conservative elite embodied by Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, a former army chief who took power in a 2014 coup.
But in a kingdom where coups and court orders have often trumped the ballot box, there are fears the result could still be thwarted, raising the prospect of recent instability.
7 monks arrested for stealing property price $8.9 million from a Thai temple
7 monks arrested for stealing property price $8.9 million from a Thai temple
After ballots were counted at 97 percent of polling stations, Election Commission data showed MFP received 13.5 million votes in the favored vote, followed by Pheu Thai with 10.3 million and Prayuth’s United Thai Nation party with 4.5 million. .
The result’s a striking achievement for the MFP, an upstart party that harnessed the energy of the unconventional, young, pro-democracy street protests that rocked Bangkok in 2020.
Party leader Pita Limjaroenrat, 42, said she had “closed the door” to any likelihood of army-backed parties forming a minority government.
MFP will seek talks with Pheu Thai, and a coalition agreement is “definitely on the cards,” Pita told reporters.
‘Dangerous places’: insurgents, drugs and tourists on the Malaysia-Thailand border
‘Dangerous places’: insurgents, drugs and tourists on the Malaysia-Thailand border
Pheu Thai leader Paetongtarn Shinawatra congratulated the MFP on its success and said “we will work together.”
“We are ready to talk to Move Forward, but we are waiting for the official result,” she said.
The result’s a heavy blow to Pheu Thai, the newest iteration of the political movement founded by Paetongtarn’s father, billionaire former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
Previously, Thaksin-linked parties had won a majority of seats in every election since 2001, and Paetongtarn urged voters to present them a landslide to avert the specter of military interference.
Despite their success, the MFP and Pheu Thai should still face a battle to secure power under the 2017 structure, written by the junta.
The latest prime minister might be chosen jointly by 500 elected lawmakers and 250 senate members appointed by Prayuth’s junta – a tilt in favor of the military.
Adding to the uncertainty are rumors that MFP could also be dissolved by court order – the identical fate that befell its predecessor, the Future Forward Party, after it performed unexpectedly well within the 2019 poll.
The elections were the primary since major street protests broke out in 2020, demanding limits on the ability and spending of Thailand’s king, violating a long-held taboo against questioning the monarchy.
The demonstrations died down with the imposition of Covid-19 restrictions and the arrest of dozens of leaders, but their energy boosted support for the more radical opposition MFP.
“The younger generations now care about their rights and can go to vote,” Pita told reporters as she arrived for Sunday’s vote.
While MFP has sought support from millennial and Gen Z voters – who make up almost half of the 52 million electorate – Pheu Thai has leaned on its traditional base in the agricultural Northeast, where voters remain grateful for the social policies implemented by Thaksin at the start of the twenty first century.
As the outcomes got here in, a somber Prayuth thanked voters for his or her support as he left his party’s headquarters.
“I will continue to give my all regardless of the result,” he told reporters.
The former general made an unabashedly nationalistic appeal to older voters, presenting himself because the only candidate able to saving Thailand from chaos and smash.
But it was blamed for the economic collapse and weak recovery from the pandemic, which hit the dominion’s key tourism industry.
Right-wing organizations have accused Prayuth of overseeing a severe clampdown on fundamental freedoms, resulting in an enormous increase in criminal prosecutions under Thailand’s draconian royal defamation laws.
The country has seen greater than a dozen coups during the last century, and over the past twenty years it has been embroiled in a cycle of street protests, coups and court orders disbanding political parties.
Time will tell whether the powerful royalist-military elite will find an understanding with the unconventional MFP.
Reports by the Associated Press, Reuters, Agence France-Presse and Bloomberg
