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
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.
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.
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.
