{"id":416771,"date":"2023-05-14T08:50:57","date_gmt":"2023-05-14T05:50:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/?p=416771"},"modified":"2023-05-14T08:52:06","modified_gmt":"2023-05-14T05:52:06","slug":"million-of-voters-head-to-the-polling-stations-in-thailand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/million-of-voters-head-to-the-polling-stations-in-thailand\/","title":{"rendered":"Million of voters head to the polling stations in Thailand"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>SONNA, &#8211; <\/strong>Millions of voters started heading to the polls in Thailand as a general election there began Sunday at 8 a.m. local time.<\/p>\n<p>Around 52 million eligible voters will elect members of a new 500-seat House of Representatives for the next four years.<\/p>\n<p>Major parties, including Pheu Thai, the Move Forward Party (MFP), United Thai Nation (UTN) Party, Democrat Party, Palang Pracharath Party (PPRP) and Bhumjaithai Party will compete.<\/p>\n<p>Thailand&#8217;s political landscape is often divided into two camps: those who support the military establishment and those who support greater democracy and civil liberties.<\/p>\n<p>Prayuth Chan-Ocha, a retired Royal Thai Army officer, came to power through a military coup in May 2014, ousting the democratically-elected government of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra.<\/p>\n<p>He led the military junta until 2019 when he became prime minister of a civilian government appointed by the junta&#8217;s hand-picked lawmakers. He has remained in power since, making him one of Thailand&#8217;s longest-serving prime ministers.<\/p>\n<p>The election presents an opportunity for opposition groups to challenge Prayuth&#8217;s grip on power.<\/p>\n<p>Opposition Pheu Thai Party, one of the most popular political parties that won five general elections before being ousted by the coup is leading in most polls with a solid support base in rural areas and working-class voters.<\/p>\n<p>Also, emerging from the pro-democracy protests in 2020, the progressive Move Forward Party, which quickly gained support among young voters and pro-democracy activists is considered one of the leading contenders, according to polls.<\/p>\n<p>Around 6,679 candidates are contesting for 500 seats in parliament while 63, including nine women, are nominated by 43 parties for the prime ministership, according to Thai PBS World.<\/p>\n<p>Voting will end at 5 p.m. with preliminary results scheduled to be announced later Sunday.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Source: AA<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>SONNA, &#8211; Millions of voters started heading to the polls in Thailand as a general election there began Sunday at 8 a.m. local time. Around 52 million eligible voters will elect members of a new 500-seat House of Representatives for the next four years. Major parties, including Pheu Thai, the Move Forward Party (MFP), United [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":120,"featured_media":416772,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[78],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-416771","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416771","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/120"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=416771"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416771\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":416775,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416771\/revisions\/416775"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/416772"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=416771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=416771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=416771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}