There will be a general election in Thailand on May 14, 2023, as confirmed today by the country’s Election Committee (EC).
The election will occur on May 14, with early voting beginning on May 7. More than 52 million eligible voters must cast ballots.
His Majesty King Maha Vajiralongkorn Bodindradebayavarangkun of Thailand backed Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha’s decision to dissolve the House of Representatives yesterday, making it effective immediately. This paved the way for the upcoming election.
The opposition Phue Thai Party received nearly half of the Sunday vote.
The United Thai Nation party of Prime Minister Prayut won about 12% of the vote.
As the final week of his government’s four-year term approaches, Thailand Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha announced on Friday that he had written a proclamation to dismiss parliament before an election.
It would take the permission of Thailand’s monarch and publication in the country’s official gazette, the Royal Gazette, for the mandate to take effect. An election must be held within 45-60 days of the dissolution.
“I have made the decree; now we must wait. The Royal Gazette is where the official announcement will be made. “Reporters in Chiang Mai, in the country’s north, overheard Prayuth making this claim.
He responded, “We have to wait” for an ETA.
In a vicious, 18-year power struggle in Southeast Asia’s second-biggest economy, the election will pit the rich Shinawatra family against parties backed by the royalist military and old-money conservatives.
Retired general Prayuth, who has been in power since orchestrating a coup against Yingluck Shinawatra’s administration in 2014, has announced that he will be running for president under the banner of the new United Thai Nation party.
In Paetongtarn Shinawatra, Yingluck’s niece and the daughter of former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, he will face a formidable opponent.
For months now, polls have shown that 36-year-old Paetongtarn is more popular than Prayuth as a candidate to become the next prime minister of Thailand.
To prevent any political maneuvering against her party, she declared Friday that Pheu Thai would win by a landslide during a candidate introduction event.
Pheu Thai or its predecessors have won every election in the last two decades, but three of their regimes have been abruptly ended by judicial judgments or military takeovers.
I am confident that we will be able to create a government, and that is why we are personally campaigning for a landslide, Paetongtarn remarked.
Asked about the chance her opponents may try to keep her party from the ruling, she answered, “Of course, of course”.
