Voters wait in a queue to cast their ballot at a polling station during the country’s general election in Narathiwat, southern Thailand, on May 14, 2023.
Madaree Tohlala/AFP via Getty Images
In a vote widely seen as a referendum on nine years of military-backed rule that brought the current prime minister and coup leader Prayuth Chan-ocha to power in Thailand, unofficial results show the opposition surging toward victory.
With roughly 84% of votes counted, the Pheu Thai party, the latest iteration of the populist political machine of deposed prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, is projected to have won 113 seats, while the progressive upstart Move Forward Party won 115 — propelled by voters like 38-year-old nurse Tidawan who voted in the northeastern city of Khon Kaen.
“I want a new thing, a new power, and a new way,” said Tidawan, who didn’t want to give her last name. “Under the military, nothing is going to change.”
That idea was echoed by 25-year-old Wachiraporn Taweemaneekot, who cast her vote for Move Forward in the capital, Bangkok.
“I just wanted to see something new, something better,” she said at a polling station near the center of the city. “Now we need a new thing to bring us into the future. To bring us forward.”
Move Forward Party leader and prime ministerial candidate Pita Limjaroenrat gives a press conference at the party headquarters in Bangkok on May 14 after polls closed in Thailand’s general election.
Jack Taylor/AFP via Getty Images
Move Forward ran on a…
Read the full article here
Leave a Reply