{"id":37591,"date":"2019-03-27T04:24:50","date_gmt":"2019-03-27T04:24:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=37591"},"modified":"2019-03-27T04:24:50","modified_gmt":"2019-03-27T04:24:50","slug":"election-observers-question-thailands-ongoing-vote-count","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=37591","title":{"rendered":"Election observers question Thailand’s ongoing vote-count"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A group of international election observers has criticised vote-counting in Thailand<\/a>‘s first election since a 2014 military coup<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Thailand’s vote on Sunday was “heavily tilted” to benefit a party close to the ruling generals, one Asian election monitor said, denouncing a messy ballot-counting process that created mistrust.<\/p>\n

Persistent confusion about results days after the vote has diminished hopes the first vote in five years would end nearly 15 years of political turmoil in Southeast Asia’s second-largest economy.<\/p>\n

Official results are not due for weeks, but an opposition “democratic front” said it has attracted enough coalition partners to form a government, while a pro-army party also declared victory and said it would not accept anyone but miltary government leader Prayuth Chan-ocha as prime minister.<\/p>\n

The Bangkok-based Asian Network for Free Elections stopped short on Tuesday of declaring outright fraud in the election.<\/p>\n

“The environment at large is heavily tilted to benefit the military junta,” Amael Vier, an official of the civil society group, told a news briefing. “A lot of people still express distrust towards the electoral process.”<\/p>\n

‘CheatingElection19’<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Thailand’s Election Commission was not immediately available for comment. It has previously declined to comment on accusations of cheating.<\/p>\n

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Thailand parties manoeuvre for position amid election confusion<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n

Allegations of electoral fraud have rapidly spread on social media in Thailand, where trending terms on Twitter include “ECBusted” and “CheatingElection19.”<\/p>\n

Another monitor group, We Watch, said it sent 4,000 observers to 72 provinces. It released a statement noting it had “many doubts” related to the transparency of the vote count.<\/p>\n

With only partial results reported, the party backing miltary government leader Prayuth has said it was gathering coalition partners to form a government.<\/p>\n

But the main opposition Pheu Thai party – loyal to ousted former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra <\/a>– has alleged “irregularities” and is considering legal challenges, while also saying it is putting together a coalition government.<\/p>\n

What next?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

It could be days or even weeks before it is clear whether either has won enough seats to form a stable government.<\/p>\n

A fuller picture could emerge on Friday when the commission releases vote tallies for each constituency, used to determine the allocation of party seats in a complex formula.<\/p>\n

Pheu Thai’s Secretary General, Phumtham Wechayachai, said the party had secured more than 250 seats, or half the House, entitling it form a majority government.<\/p>\n

Prayuth, meanwhile, spoke to the media on Tuesday for the first time since the election, though he refused to take any questions.<\/p>\n

He said he was not yet trying to form a new government and instead would focus on his work as prime minister and military government regime leader until there was a “new government legally under the constitution”.<\/p>\n

Prayuth said everything was going as mandated by the new charter, which he noted had been approved in a referendum. “Try to respect the people’s voice,” he said. “That’s all.”<\/p>\n

Since 2004, Thailand has been racked by street protests<\/a> organised by both opponents and supporters of Thaksin, occasionally spilling into violence.<\/p>\n

Parties linked to Thaksin have won every election since 2001, but the populist telecoms billionaire was thrown out by the army in 2006, and a government led by his sister was ousted <\/a>in 2014.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A group of international election observers has criticised vote-counting in Thailand’s first election since a 2014 military coup. Thailand’s vote on Sunday was “heavily tilted” to benefit a party close to the ruling generals, one Asian election monitor said, denouncing a messy ballot-counting process that created mistrust. Persistent confusion about results days after the vote…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":37592,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37591","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37591","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=37591"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37591\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/37592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=37591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=37591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}