The race for the upcoming elections has almost reached its climax, with advance election day on May 7 and D-Day on May 14, when it will be decided who will win and form a government.
Given the significant rise in popularity of the Move Forward Party noted by several polling institutes, the question is whether the party will take votes away from the pro-democracy party Pheu Thai. This raises the question of whether the situation will benefit the conservative parties, allowing them to stay in power.
Two academics who participated in the election analysis organized by Matichon X Daily News on May 5 seem to agree that this is not how the election will turn out.
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Thamrongsak Phet-Loet-Anan, a member of the political science faculty at Rangsit University, believes that the Pheu Thai and Move Forward parties are not competing with each other for votes but have a clear support base and the vote will also reflect democratic ideology. He added that the time for the coup descendants of the last 9 years is over.
“Currently, the Move Forward Party has more than 6 million votes, reflecting the voice of the people who do not want military rule. As for the votes for the Pheu Thai Party, they are based on the idea of maintaining a good living and the voter base is not clearly divided. This is a clear victory for the pro-democracy camp,” said Assoc. Prof. Thamrongsak.
The structure of Thai society is 40 per cent agricultural and 60 per cent urban. Surveys mainly represent the urban population, which is not interested in inheriting the power of the past. Meanwhile, people in rural areas are no longer conservative. The party most likely to be elected by the rural population is Pheu Thau, while the Move Forward Party, which has been active in the rural areas for some time, could also get some votes.
According to the poll conducted by Matichon-Daily News, the combined percentage of votes for Pita Limjaroenrat, the leader of the Move Forward party and two Pheu Thais candidates: Paetongtarn Shinawatra and Srettha Thavisin, is 80-85 per cent.
Prajak Kongkirati of Thammasat University’s political science department said it was clear that all the surveys showed the same trend, with slightly different figures. Even at the lowest rate, the combined vote for the opposition parties is 70 per cent in some polls, and up to 83 per cent in the Matichon and Daily News polls.
The parties in the ruling coalition currently have a combined vote of no more than 30 per cent, and as low as 15 per cent in some polls. If this were converted into seats, it would mean that the opposition would have 350 seats, while the parties of the ruling coalition would have 150 seats together.
To Wisanu Kreuangam, the deputy prime minister and legal expert, who had suggested that there might be a minority government after this election, Prajak countered that there had never been a minority government in Thai history and that there was no such thing as a minority government in the world because it was not viable under the law.
It has no potential to advance politics and, above all, it distorts the will of the people, leading to a high level of discontent and great danger.
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Related News: Move Forward Party Overtakes Pheu Thai in Matichon’s Survey
