Global Courant 2023-05-07 09:46:00
BANGKOK – Many Thais lined up on Sunday to vote early in parliamentary elections scheduled for May 14.
More than 2 million Thais had registered for early voting from the country’s 52 million eligible voters aged 18 and over, according to the country’s election commission.
“I want to see change and improvement in management,” said 51-year-old Gosol Pungtaku, one of 800,000 Bangkok residents who signed up early for a day in the capital.
Another voter, Siriporn Namphet, 34, said she voted for change.
“It’s like you saw what the previous government did and now hope that a new government will take over and govern more effectively,” she told Reuters.
The elections could upset the status quo after more than eight years of a conservative pro-military government led by former army chief Prayut Chan-o-cha.
Prayut, 69, who first seized power in a coup in 2014 and remained prime minister after the 2019 election, which critics said was rigged to favor the junta leader, a charge the government denied, is pending in recent opinion polls far behind the opposition parties.
Opposition party Pheu Thai, a populist group that won five general elections before 2019 and was ousted by Prayut in the coup, leads in most polls, followed by the progressive Move Forward Party.
The election is for the House of Representatives with 500 seats. REUTERS
Thai voters cast their ballots early a week earlier
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