Thailand elections: Opposition crushes military-backed conservative party fulfilling voters’ hopes of change
India TV NewsMany voters in Thailand breathed a sigh of relief on Sunday after the country's main opposition parties emerged victorious in the general election. With 99% of the votes counted by early Monday morning, the junior opposition Move Forward Party had eked out a small edge over the favored Pheu Thai Party, whose leaders earlier in the night conceded they might not finish on top. The maverick Move Forward Party captured just over 24% of the popular vote for the House of Representatives’ 400 constituency seats and an almost 36% share of the vote for seats allocated in a separate nationwide ballot for the 100 members elected by proportional representation. The tally of constituency votes gave Move Forward 113 House seats and Pheu Thai 112, according to the Election Commission, which did not give a projection for party list seats. Pheu Thai won the most seats in the last election in 2019, but its archrival, the military-backed Palang Pracharath Party, succeeded in cobbling together a coalition with Prayuth as prime minister.