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Thai politics has fallen into chaos after its first elections since the 2014 coup, two parties claiming the right to govern, the electoral commission has refused to announce the official result and concerns have been expressed about polls irregular.
The unofficial results of Sunday's election showed that the party phalang pracharat, a military party, had surpbaded the low expectations to win the most votes, while the pro-democracy party Pheu Thai, won by just the most seats.
"We have the greatest number of votes and, according to the Thai Constitution, the one with the greatest number of votes will be the one who will form the government," said Sontirat Sontijirawong, secretary general of Phalang Pracharat, formed by the junta to to keep power through the ballot box and got about 7.9 million votes across the country.
Pheu Thai, who was ousted from power in 2014 and is allied with exiled Thai leader Thaksin Shinawatra, is far from the overwhelming victory his supporters had hoped for. Nevertheless, his leader, Sudarat Keyuraphan, said he would try to form a government because he would win the most constituencies.
"As we have said previously, the party with the most seats is the one that has received the trust of the people to form the government," said Sudarat.
Thaksin said Monday that the army had "manipulated" the results.
"I knew that the ruling junta of Thailand wanted to stay in power, but I can not believe how much it manipulated Sunday's general election," he wrote in an opinion piece in the statement. New York Times.
With no party winning an absolute majority, both parties were prepared to try to form coalitions to form a government.
The elections were further disrupted by the electoral commission's refusal to formally declare the exact number of parliamentary seats that each party had won. The commission stated that it had first had to investigate many issues and complaints that had arisen during the voting process. Official results are now expected on May 9th.
Very irregular electoral data were reported by several constituencies, including one district, Nakhon Ratchasima, where the number of votes cast would have been 839,564 more than the number of registered voters. In Chiang Rai District in the north of the country, the number of rejected ballots was almost double the number of eligible ballots.
The commission also dealt with the case of 1,500 overseas voices from New Zealand, which she had not managed to get customs in time. At a press conference, the deputy secretary general, Nat Laosisawakul, seemed confused, saying that the commission had consulted "the ambbadador of Helsinki" on how to proceed with the votes.
The system was already heavily wedged in favor of the army. The new constitution, drafted by the army in 2016, gives it the power to appoint the 250 senators, who then get the vote of the prime minister. This means that the army only needs 126 votes in the lower house to bring junta leader Prayut Chan-ocha to the post of prime minister.
In the end, the turnout was significantly lower than expected at a little over 65%, which would have hurt the pro-democracy parties. Pheu Thai was also crippled by the dissolution of Thai Raksa Chart, their sister party, allied with Thaksin, who had been a key part of Pheu Thai's strategy to win a majority in parliament. Thai Raksa Chart was forced to dissolve by the electoral commission after appointing the king's older sister, Princess Ubolranata, as prime minister, which was subsequently declared unconstitutional.
Election observers on Monday voiced concerns over the "incoherent" vote counting process, echoing concerns previously voiced by opposition activists and politicians that the elections are not being held. were neither free nor fair.
PNet, a group of 2,600 independent volunteer observers, reported numerous violations of the voting and vote counting process, and many observers were denied access to polling stations.
PNet spokesman Chompunut Chalieobun told the Guardian that he was presenting an "urgent request" to meet with the electoral commission to discuss his findings. "There have been so many disturbing results and we are trying to check them all for now," said Chompunut.
"The preparation and organization of polling stations was very inconsistent, the standards varied enormously from one office to the other," she added. "And this observation posed many problems. A large number of our volunteers were denied entry into the polls and others even just in the voting area. After the polls closed, many were not allowed to watch the vote count. So there are a lot of worries for us.
It will probably take weeks of negotiations behind the scenes to know who will form the new government. A key player in deciding who will be the non-partisan party Bhumjaithai, who has garnered substantial votes defying populist policies such as the legalization of marijuana for recreational purposes, and who is now courted by pro-military and pro-pro factions -democracy.
If the pro-military faction takes control of the new parliament, as most people think, operating in a democratic system can be a test for Prayut and the military, who are not accustomed to having political opposition as long as they do not. they are in power. During the five years of military rule, detractors of the junta were regularly imprisoned or sent to "re-education camps" and Prayut had Article 44, which gave him absolute power. There was little or no consultation, transparency or accountability under the junta government.
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