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Thai election: parties jostle for votes by selling economic promises – and snubbing the junta

  • Campaigning is in high gear ahead of the March 24 polls but there’s no reaction to the dissolution of Thai Raksa Chart, which picked a princess as its PM candidate
  • Instead, there is a fierce debate about how the military should stay out of politics after the country votes

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Candidates for the pro-military Palang Pracharat Party in front of a picture of current Thai prime minister Prayuth Chan-Ocha during a rally. Photo: AFP

Campaigning for junta-ruled Thailand’s first election since the 2014 coup has kicked into high gear two weeks ahead of the vote, as pro-democracy contenders spar over the nitty-gritty of rival economic policies and the title of being the furthest removed from the current military rulers.

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The one issue on most commentators’ lips, however, did not feature in the intensified hustings – last week’s dissolution of a party linked to the powerful Shinawatra clan over its abortive pick of King Maha Vajiralongkorn’s sister as a prime ministerial candidate.

In a live debate among party leaders on Sunday, the focus was on how the parties planned to steer Southeast Asia’s second-biggest economy after the March 24 vote.

Leaders sought to convince voters that their respective economic platforms – some unveiled over the weekend – were the best placed to restore an economy they said had underperformed during the five-year rule of junta chief Prayuth Chan-ocha.

The pro-military Palang Pracharat Party that is seeking to keep Prayuth as prime minister did not have a representative at the debate, despite being invited.

When quizzed over why voters should support the Pheu Thai party – the country’s biggest political party, which is backed by the polarising exiled prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra – its leader Sudarat Keyuraphan said the outfit’s track record spoke for itself.

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Pheu Thai was in power from 2011 to 2014, under the leadership of Thaksin’s sister Yingluck Shinawatra. Yingluck joined her brother in self-exile after Prayuth seized the country’s reins from her in a coup.

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