Thailand’s progressive opposition made early headway in a preliminary election vote count on Sunday, with a big lead opening up over conservative parties allied with a military at the heart of government for nearly a decade.
The election commission’s running count showed the populist Pheu Thai Party, which together with its previous incarnations has won every election since 2001, out in front in the early stages of the count along with another opposition party, Move Forward, with a quarter of eligible votes counted.
Sunday’s election pits Move Forward and the billionaire Shinawatra family’s Pheu Thai against ruling parties backed by a nexus of old money, conservatives and generals with influence over key institutions involved in two decades of upheaval in Southeast Asia’s second-biggest economy. The poll body was expected to announce its preliminary election results later in the evening.
