The general election in Thailand has started, and the front-runner is the daughter of deposed former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
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For a nation that has recently had twelve military coups, the election is being hailed as a turning moment.
The army officer who oversaw the latest coup in 2014, Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, is running for re-election.
But he is up against two opposition groups that are anti-military.
On Sunday, voting commenced at 8:00 a.m. (01:00 GMT) at the 95,000 polling places located around the nation.
500 members of the lower house of parliament will be chosen by around 50 million voters, of whom about 2 million have already voted.
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Paetongtarn Shinawatra, the daughter of Mr. Thaksin, is leading the race for Pheu Thai (For Thais).
The 36-year-old is utilizing her father's extensive network of supporters while adhering to the populist ideology that has found support in the nation's rural, low-income areas.
Many lower-class Thais adore Mr. Thaksin, a billionaire in the telecoms industry, but the royalist elite holds him in the highest regard. When his opponents accused him of corruption, he was overthrown in a military coup in 2006. He has refuted the accusations and has been living in exile in London and Dubai since 2008.
After eight years, "I think the people want better politics, better solutions for the country than just coup d'etats," Ms. Paetongtarn recently told.
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In surveys, Move Forward, which is led by 42-year-old Pita Limjaroenrat, a former IT CEO, has also been making rapid gains. Young, progressive, and aspirational individuals have been running for office with a straightforward but impactful platform: Thailand needs to change.
And the modification isn't actually intended to facilitate another coup. This is a change backward, therefore. For a democratic future with improved economic performance, it's about modernizing the military and the monarchy, according to Thitinan Pongsudhirak of Chulalongkorn University's Institute of Security and International Studies.
Mr. Prayuth, 69, is behind in the polls right now. After months of unrest, he overthrew the administration of Yingluck Shinawatra, the sister of Mr. Thaksin.
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2019 saw the holding of elections in Thailand, although the results revealed no one party had secured a majority.
Following a procedure that the opposition deemed unfair, a pro-military party created the government and chose Mr. Prayuth as its candidate for prime minister.
The previous edition of Move Forward, Future Forward, which had fared well in the election thanks to the fervent backing of younger people, was disbanded the following year by a contentious court decision.
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This provoked widespread demonstrations that lasted six months and demanded changes to the monarchy and military.
It seems improbable that any one party will win an absolute majority of seats in the lower house given the roughly 70 parties running in this election, including some sizable ones.
However, the political structure left behind by the military-drafted 2017 constitution and a number of other extra-electoral authorities can prohibit one party from gaining power even if it does win a majority or has a majority coalition in place.
A 250-seat appointed senate with the power to vote on the next prime minister and the cabinet was established by the constitution, which was drafted when Thailand was governed by the military.
The senators have never voted in favor of the opposition since they were all nominated by the coup leaders, who also control the military.
Therefore, in theory, a party without the support of the Senate would need a supermajority of 376 seats out of 500, which is an impossible goal.
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