Opinion | Thai election: a political laundering by the junta to earn legitimacy

A new constitution, a junta-appointed Senate, weakened opposition and allegations of vote rigging. All signs point to Prime Minister General Prayuth Chan-ocha keeping his grip on power, writes Pithaya Pookaman

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Thailand's Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha casts his ballot to vote in the general election. Photo: Reuters

Published: 2:01pm, 10 May 2019Updated: 2:01pm, 10 May 2019

With almost one and a half months since Thailand’s general election on March 24, Prime Minister General Prayuth Chan-ocha, leader of the military junta that usurped power from Yingluck Shinawatra’s government in 2014, seems a step closer to serving another term.

On the May 7 and 8, the Election Commission (EC) certified 95 per cent of the election results on constituency MPs and party-list MPs respectively. The remaining 5 per cent will be tabulated when the cases involving possible disqualification of some candidates are settled.

As expected, the Puea Thai party, linked to former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra who has lived in self-exile since 2008, won most lower house seats with 136 MPs, followed by the junta-aligned Palang Pracharat Party with 115 seats and the youthful Future Forward Party (FFP) with 80 seats. The Democrat Party, Thailand’s oldest political party, has had to swallow its pride with only 52 seats.

The delay in the official announcement of the results stems from the flawed election tallies by the EC which, being plagued with poor management and inefficiency, subsequently failed to explain several allegations of irregularities in vote tabulation as well as report 1.9 million invalidated ballots. The ballot cast in some provinces far exceeded the voter turnout.

Charoongwit Poomma, Secretary-General of Election Commission. Photo: AP

The EC’s shortcoming was compounded by confusion and indecision over which formula should be used to tabulate party-list MPs. In the end, the EC opted for a controversial formula that awarded smaller parties that did not meet the electoral threshold set in the Constitution.