Thais vote in battle of old rivals; Opposition tipped to get majority

Bangkok, May 14

Thailand’s progressive opposition made early headway in a preliminary election vote count on Sunday, with a big lead opening up over conservative parties allied with a military at the heart of government for nearly a decade.

The election commission’s running count showed the populist Pheu Thai Party, which together with its previous incarnations has won every election since 2001, out in front in the early stages of the count along with another opposition party, Move Forward, with a quarter of eligible votes counted.

Sunday’s election pits Move Forward and the billionaire Shinawatra family’s Pheu Thai against ruling parties backed by a nexus of old money, conservatives and generals with influence over key institutions involved in two decades of upheaval in Southeast Asia’s second-biggest economy. The poll body was expected to announce its preliminary election results later in the evening.

Bhumjaithai, a regional party and coalition member, was third, the vote count showed, ahead of the army-backed Palang Pracharat Party and the United Thai Nation party of Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, who came to power in a 2014 coup.

Opposition gains would bring no guarantees that either party would govern, however, even as an alliance, because of parliamentary rules written by the military after the 2014 coup that are skewed in its favour. Electing a Prime Minister and forming a government requires the backing of a majority of the lower and upper houses combined and analysts expect weeks of horse-trading before alliances are formed and a Prime Minister is chosen. — Reuters