[ad_1]
Bangkok, Thailand – The main Thai political parties were vying for their position Monday in the confusion surrounding the winner of the poll that took place last weekend as part of a new complicated voting system comprising elements of proportional representation.
The Electoral Commission postponed its announcement on the results from Sunday evening to Monday morning. It was then postponed to the afternoon, due to technical problems.
He then announced that he would only reveal the names of the winners of the 350 directly elected constituency seats, after the suspension of the 150 seats available on the list.
The names of the winners were uploaded to his website at 4:00 pm local time (09:00 GMT), showing that Pheu Thai had won 138 seats and Palang Pracharat, the army-backed party created to campaign for the head of government military Prayuth Chan-ocha, had won 96 seats.
Future Forward, a party created barely a year ago by billionaire Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit, a giant of car spare parts, came in third with 29 seats.
Coalition Discussions
The chief of Pheu Thai, Sudarat Keyuraphan, told reporters that his party, backed by exiled magnate Thaksin Shinawatra and having won all elections since 2001, was in talks to form a coalition.
"We want to be at the heart of the government because we did our best during the elections," she said.
But on the other side of the city, Palang Pracharat, backed by the army, told the media that he had the numbers needed to form a government.
Kobsak Pootrakool, the party spokesman, told Al Jazeera that the party won the popular vote and was forming a coalition that would secure a majority in the lower house.
"We received the most votes from all the parties that ran in the elections," he told Al Jazeera during an interview at the party's headquarters, adding that they were in the process of to form a coalition of parties sharing the same ideals.
"People made their decision clearly," Kobsak said. "For the party, that turned out to be quite satisfying."
Sunday's elections were the first since the 2014 coup d'etat, but they took place under a new constitution aimed at weakening the power of the main political parties and strengthening the influence of the political parties. military through the appointment of the upper house, which will also have a role to play in the choice of the president. Prime Minister. The campaign was lively, but constrained by repressive legislation.
"In the Thai political system and tradition, it is the party with the largest number of deputies who is the first to form a coalition," said Pravit Rojanaphruk, a senior journalist at Khaosod English. "This is not like the American system.We are entering a period of intense political jockey.
The popular vote showed Palang Pracharat with 7.6 million votes, Pheu Thai with 7.2 million and Future Forward with nearly 5.3 million. Under the new system, the calculation of the party list is done in a new, more complicated way.
The Election Commission has been criticized for the delay with which it announced the result – it now says that a complete picture will be available only on May 9 – raising concerns about irregularities.
Rohan Hettiarchi, head of the Asian Free Elections Network mission, who observed the polls, said postponements could undermine voter confidence.
At a meeting on Monday, the Electoral Commission attributed this "technical decision" to "technical problems," he said.
"We have to check what really happened and if there were any irregularities," he told Al Jazeera. ANFREL deployed 34 observers throughout the country, covering at least 1,000 polling stations.
Future Forward, which campaigned for democracy and army reform, has been successful in Bangkok and among young voters.
Low participation
Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit said the party was upset by the support he had received and that he was open to discussions with Pheu Thai to form a government.
"We are willing to form a coalition with the party that has won the most seats in the lower house, with conditions," he said at a press conference. "We are ready."
The participation rate was well below that expected after the long queues at the polls during the advance poll the week before. Just over 65% of the 51 million registered voters voted, said the commission.
Kobsak of Palang Pracharat said that people had supported the party because it promised security and because they "loved" Prayuth. He noted that many elderly people had moved to attend the party, showing on his phone photos of gray-haired men and women helped to get out of vehicles and to go to the polling station. .
He said that such people do not usually vote in Thailand.
Titipol Phakdeewanich, expert on Thai politics at Ubon Ratchathani University, said that he was not completely surprised at the support given to the army-backed party, even though it was not the same. It was not presaging for Thailand.
"People are trapped in this illusion of peace and stability described by the army," he told Al Jazeera. "It's not really stability, it's a military crackdown, it's not sustainable in the long run, if you want peace, you have to get people to accept democracy and to learn to live with differences of opinion and ideas. "
[ad_2]
Source link
