For Thailand‘s progressives, winning the vote is only the first hurdlepublished at 07:56 GMT
Jonathan Head
BBC South East Asia Correspondent
In Thailand, winning an election is never enough.
The last one, less than three years ago, produced a surprise win for the progressive Move Forward party, which had campaigned on promises of root-and-branch political and economic reforms.
These included making Thailand’s powerful military, and its largest businesses, more accountable, and reducing the heavy punishments under the notorious lese majeste law.
But powerful conservative forces, in particular the unelected senate and the constitutional court, blocked Move Forward from forming a government, dissolved the party and banned its leaders from politics. The court ruled that its proposals for the lese majeste law amounted to an attempt to overthrow the entire political system.
Now, after three tumultuous years of short-lived coalition administrations, the sacking of two prime ministers by the constitutional court and a border war with Cambodia, the reformists are making another bid for power, this time under a new name – the People’s Party.
The biggest question hanging over this election is how well the People’s Party performs. If it exceeds the 151 seats it won in 2023, it may prove difficult to bar it from forming a government, despite great unease about its radical agenda in conservative and royalist circles.
