By Linda Khoo
BANGKOK, April 9 (NNN-BERNAMA) — While Thai voters – and election watchers the world over – are waiting with bated breath for the announcement of the 2019 Thai General Election (GE) official results on May 9, certain developments have caused great anxiety for the locals.
The Election Commission (EC) on Thursday (April 4) announced the need for by-elections and vote recounts due to irregularities such as a mismatch between voter turnouts and marked ballots, and the possibility of winning candidates facing disqualification following complaints filed against them.
This is on top of previous complaints made to the EC, such as the discovery of unqualified voters and claims of repeated delays in announcing election results.
And on Saturday, the youth-backed Future Forward Party leader, Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit, was charged with sedition. He could face nine years in jail if found guilty, and he could be disqualified from parliament.
Therefore, the uneasiness in the run-up to D-Day is palpable, as this is the first GE since the 2014 military coup and the first under Thailand’s military-drafted 2017 constitution as well. Whether there will be a restoration of full democracy and civilian rule in the kingdom is anyone’s guess.
More than 38 million people went to the polls on March 24 to vote for 500-strong House of Representatives – 350 for constituency candidates, and 150 for party-list candidates where the popular vote will have the greater impact.
Palang Pracharath, the party backing Prime Minister General Prayuth Chan-o-cha, won 8.4 million votes while Pheu Thai, the party linked to former premier Thaksin Shinawatra, trailed closely behind with 7.9 million votes.
In the case of constituency seats, Pheu Thai tops the list at 137, followed by Palang Pracharath with 97 seats.
However, the EC needs to clear irregularities and complaints filed before May 9, as failing to do so could affect the final election results. Until then, the formation of the next government and choice of premier remain unclear.
Compared to the 14th Malaysian GE, which took about a month, the election in Thailand spans from the announcing of the election date on Jan 23 to the final certified vote tallies (May 9).
The Thai GE procedures include registration for early voters and overseas voters (January 28 to February 19), registration of political parties’ constituency candidates and choice of prime-ministerial candidates (Feb 4 to 8), and the EC’s announcement of the qualified constituency candidates and party-list candidates (Feb 15).
The voting processes started with overseas voting (March 4 to 16), advance voting for Thais to vote outside their home constituencies in Thailand (March 17) and the polling day (March 24).
However, EC only released the election results in stages, where the unofficial results of 93 per cent of votes were announced on the night of polling day.
To form the next government, political camps need a minimum of 251 out of 500 lower house seats.
But both Palang Pracharath and the Pheu Thai-led coalition of allies in ‘Democratic Front’ each claimed the right to form the government – the former based on popular vote (8.4 million ballots) and the latter based on the number of seats (at least 255 House of Representatives seats).
Party-list seats are allocated under a complicated calculation method based on total votes cast, and the formula will cap the number of seats that any party can gain.
The formula to compute the party-list seats and MPs remain unclear as the EC has yet to announce it.
Besides Prayuth and Thanathorn, prime-ministerial candidates in this election include Sudarat Keyuraphan (Pheu Thai) and Anutin Charnvirakul (Bhumjaithai).
The 250 appointed Senate members will join the 500 elected members of parliament to elect the next prime minister.
By this, a party needs the support of 376 out of 750 members to secure the prime minister’s post.
The wait continues.
Edited by Sharifah Syed Mestaddin
–NNN-BERNAMA
