BANGKOK, March 25 (NNN-AGENCIES) – Thailand’s junta-linked party took a shock lead in the popular vote with nearly all ballots counted, the Election Commission said late Sunday, edging ahead of its pro-democracy rivals in the first election since a 2014 coup.
The Phalang Pracharat party, which wants junta chief Prayut Chan-O-Cha to return as premier, gained more than 7.3 million votes with 91 percent of votes tallied, according to the EC — nearly half a million more than Pheu Thai.
The EC said it would announce full results on Monday, including the numbers of lower house seats won by each party.
There was a high turnout as voters flocked to schoolyards, temples and government offices across the nation, their enthusiasm fired by years of denied democracy.
The election commission’s announcement late Sunday diminished prospects of a pro-democracy alliance nudging the junta from power. But still supporters clung on in hope.
Sunday’s crunch vote was foreshadowed by a cryptic last-minute warning from King Maha Vajiralongkorn to support “good” leaders to prevent “chaos”.
While King Maha Vajiralongkorn gave no further clues as to who those “good people” might be, the phrase — “khon dee” in Thai — is habitually attached to royalist, establishment politicians.
Phalang Pracharat needed just 126 lower house seats to secure a parliamentary majority, even if it does not carry the popular mandate.
If the early results play out on Monday, it appears set to comfortably cross that line.
Pheu Thai needs 376 lower-house seats to command an overall majority.
The telegenic 40-year-old billionaire Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit and his Future Forward party were also set for a strong showing, taking over five million votes for their acerbic anti-junta positions.
Thanathorn’s social media pull appeared to have carried into the polling as his party galloped ahead in several Bangkok seats.
But it was gloom for the Democrats, Thailand’s oldest party, who looked on course for a drubbing, prompting their leader Oxford-educated Abhisist Vejjjajiva to resign late Sunday. — NNN-AGENCIES