General elections were held in Thailand on 24 March 2019. They were the first elections since the 2014 Thai coup d'état that installed coup leader General Prayut Chan-o-cha as prime minister, and the first held in accordance with the 2017 constitution, which was drafted under the ruling military junta. The elections selected the five hundred members of the new House of Representatives, the previous House having been dissolved by the coup.

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2019 Thai general election

← 2014 24 March 2019 2023 →
All 500 seats in the House of Representatives 251 seats needed for a majority
Turnout	74.69%
Party Leader % Seats Palang Pracharat Prayut Chan-o-cha (Independent) 23.34 116 Pheu Thai Sudarat Keyuraphan 21.92 136 Future Forward Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit 17.34 81 Democrat Abhisit Vejjajiva 10.92 53 Bhumjaithai Anutin Charnvirakul 10.33 51 Thai Liberal Sereepisuth Temeeyaves 2.29 10 Chart Thai Pattana Kanchana Silpa-archa 2.16 10 New Economics Mingkwan Saengsuwan 1.34 6 Prachachart Wan Muhamad Noor Matha 1.34 7 Puea Chat Songkram Kitlertpairote 1.16 5 Action Coalition for Thailand Suthep Thaugsuban 1.15 5 Chart Pattana Suwat Liptapanlop 0.70 3 Thai Local Power Chatchawal Kong-udom 0.59 3 Forest Conservation Damrong Pidej 0.38 2 People Power Nikhom Bunwiset 0.23 1 Thai Nation Power Songklod Thiprat 0.20 1 People Progressive Somkiat Sornlump 0.19 1 Palang Thai Rak Thai Kathathep Techadetruangkul 0.17 1 Thai Civilized Mongkolkit Suksintharanon 0.17 1 Prachaniyom Yongyut Thepjumnong 0.16 1 Teachers for People Prida Bunphloeng 0.16 1 People Justice Pichet Satirachawan 0.13 1 People Reform Paiboon Nititawan 0.13 1 Citizen Power Silumpa Lertnuwat 0.12 1 New Democracy Suratin Pichan 0.11 1 New Palangdharma Ravee Maschamadol 0.10 1 This lists parties that won seats. See the complete results below. Results by constituency Prime Minister before Prime Minister-designate Prayut Chan-o-cha National Council for Peace and Order (Military Junta) Prayut Chan-o-cha Independent

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Seventy-seven parties contested the elections, including the two major parties, Pheu Thai (which supported former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra and held a majority of seats prior to the coup) and the Democrat Party (the main opposition party prior to the coup). They were joined by several new parties, which mostly campaigned on a pro- or anti-junta stance. The former included the Prayut-aligned Palang Pracharath Party, while the latter included the Future Forward Party, which catered to young voters, as well as several Pheu Thai–aligned parties.

The elections were held using a new mixed-member apportionment system, in which voters cast a single vote for both a constituency candidate and a nationwide party list, with the nationwide list used as leveling seats to achieve proportional representation. Under the new constitution, the prime minister did not need to be an elected member of the House, and would be chosen by the full Parliament, including the 250 members of the Senate, rather than only members of the House as previously.

The elections were widely seen as a skewed race in which Prayut had an unfair advantage, as the 250 sitting members of the appointed Senate were to be selected by the junta. The Royal Family was involved to an unusual degree; the Pheu Thai–aligned Thai Raksa Chart Party named Princess Ubol Ratana, the elder sister of King Vajiralongkorn, as its candidate for prime minister, leading to condemnation by the King and the party's dissolution by the Constitutional Court. In a move criticised on social media and interpreted as a political intervention, Vajiralongkorn issued a statement on the night prior to the election urging the public to support "good people" to prevent "chaos", quoting remarks by his father, the late king.^[1][2][3]

Overseas voting took place from 28 January to 19 February, and advanced voting took place throughout the country on 17 March. The main election took place from 08:00 to 17:00 on 24 March. Rights groups and election monitors criticized the election for its biased environment, and the Election Commission for many errors and irregularities. The announcement of the results was repeatedly delayed; unofficial results were announced on 28 March, four days after the election. Official results were announced on 8 May.

Although Palang Pracharath received the most votes and won 116 seats, Pheu Thai emerged as the largest party with 136 seats. Most of the remaining seats were won by the Future Forward, Democrat and Bhumjaithai parties. Pheu Thai and Future Forward announced a seven-party alliance soon after the election, but were unable to form a government. Parliament convened on 24 May and on 5 June voted to make Prayut prime minister.

Early general elections had been held on 2 February 2014 after Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra asked King Bhumibol Adulyadej to dissolve parliament more than a year early due to a political crisis. The leaders of the anti-government protests objected to the polls, instead demanding that there be "reform before elections" and the Yingluck government be replaced with a royally-appointed "reform council".^[4] The elections were thus boycotted by the main opposition party, the Democrat Party, and disruption by protesters meant that voting in some constituencies had to be delayed until a later date, while absentee voters in urban areas were unable to vote.^[5]

In April 2014 the Constitutional Court ruled that the election was unconstitutional because the vote had not taken place on the same day nationwide.^[6] Following an agreement between the Election Commission and Yingluck's government, the fresh elections were set for 20 July.^[6] However, the elections were cancelled after a coup d'état in May deposed the elected government and installed a military government known as the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO), led by General Prayut Chan-o-cha, then-Commander in Chief of the Royal Thai Army. The NCPO, on taking power, declared its intention to hold general elections after carrying out reforms and promulgating a new constitution.^[7][8]

Changes to the voting system, introduced by the 2017 constitution, were first implemented in this election. Whereas previous general elections in Thailand since 2001 used a parallel voting system, with voters marking two ballots, one for their constituency and one for a nationwide party list, the new system, referred to as "mixed-member apportionment", uses a mixed single vote for both the constituency and the party list (which makes it a variant of the mixed-member proportional system). The 350 constituency seats are won by first-past-the-post voting as in previous elections. However, the 150 party-list seats serve a compensatory function, and are allocated so as to give each party a total number of seats proportional to the nationwide number of votes they received (top-up).^[17][18]

Other changes introduced by the new constitution are the removal of the requirement that the prime minister be selected from among the elected members of the House of Representatives. Instead, each party may name, in advance, up to three candidates to nominate as prime minister if they achieve a majority. Also, the prime minister will be voted on by the combined National Assembly, which also includes the 250 members of the Senate, Thailand's upper house, rather than only by the House of Representatives, as was previously done.^[19]

As the entire sitting Senate will be appointed by the NCPO, commentators say that the change opens up the strong possibility that Prayut will become Thailand's next prime minister despite pro-Prayut parties being predicted to win fewer seats in the House of Representatives.^[20] With the assumption that all 250 senators will support Prayut, pro-Prayut parties would only need to win 126 seats for him to be selected as prime minister.^[21][22]

In total, seventy-seven parties contested the elections. Among them are the two major parties of the previous elected house, Pheu Thai (the majority) and the Democrat Party (the opposition), as well as the smaller long-standing players Bhumjaithai, Chartthaipattana and Chart Pattana.^[31]

Several new parties also ran for the first time. The Palang Pracharath Party directly supported Prayut, and included several of his cabinet members. Other smaller pro-Prayut parties include the Action Coalition for Thailand, led by 2013–2014 protest leader Suthep Thaugsuban, and the People Reform Party, headed by Paiboon Nititawan.^[31]

On the opposing end, many parties took an anti-junta stance. These include several Pheu Thai–aligned parties, as well as other groups. As the election laws and regulatory bodies were seen as stacked and biased against their favour, Pheu Thai split off into a network of several smaller affiliated parties in order to distribute their risk from legal intervention. These parties were Thai Raksa Chart, Puea Chat (consisting of several United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship leaders), and Prachachart.^[31][32]

The other anti-military parties include the Future Forward Party, which is led by multimillionaire businessman Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit and campaigned on a strong liberal stance catering to young voters, and the Thai Liberal Party, led by former police commissioner Seripisut Temiyavet.^[31]

On the night of 8 February, the day Princess Ubolratana was nominated as prime minister candidate by Thai Raksa Chart Party, her younger brother King Maha Vajiralongkorn made a televised announcement condemning her bid as "defy[ing] the nation's culture".^[33] The party was later dissolved by the Constitutional Court.^[34] The move was a huge blow to anti-Prayut camp, as Thaksin made a tactical decision to field two parties to win as many seats as possible.^[35]: 156

On the night of 23 March, just hours before the polls opened, King Maha Vajiralongkorn again made a televised announcement that he would like to warn people by citing a speech given by his father, Bhumibol Adulyadej, 30 years ago, saying good people should be supported to govern so they can prevent bad people from creating trouble.^[1] This made the hashtag "#โตแล้วเลือกเองได้" ("We are grown up, we can choose by ourselves") trending at number 1 on Twitter soon afterwards.^[2][36][37] During the election hours, the royal announcement was repeatedly re-broadcast on television and the Election Commission president stated to the press urging the Thais to make their choices by "taking the royal announcement into account".^[38]

Prior to the 2017 Thai Constitution, any elected House of Representative member could be voted upon and selected as prime minister.

Under the new constitution, political parties can name up to three candidates for prime minister prior to the election. These candidates do not have to be members of the House of Representatives or even members of a political party as long as they meet the legal qualifications.^{[citation needed]}

The candidates for the main contending parties are Sudarat Keyuraphan, Chadchart Sittipunt and Chaikasem Nitisiri for Pheu Thai, Abhisit Vejjajiva for the Democrats, Prayut Chan-o-cha for Palang Pracharat, and Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit for Future Forward.^{[citation needed]}

The election was widely seen as unfree and unfair, due to the creation of an electoral system designed to favour the junta's newly created Myanmar-style civil-military state-sponsored political party, Palang Pracharat, which developed a 'Pracharat' ('People's State) brand accompanied by state handouts up to the eve of the election;^[44] deliberate manipulation of election rules typical in electoral authoritarianism, including gerrymandering and the poaching of politicians from other parties; a biased voting environment; and a pattern of biased decision-making by the Election Commission.^[44][45][46] The Election Commission, which was appointed by the junta-appointed 2014 National Legislative Assembly, was widely criticized for perceived biases and incompetency.^[44] The polling process saw many reports of irregularities,^[47] and the counting process and initial results were very confused, as the live figures released by the EC contained large amounts of errors. Unofficial results, which typically would be known by the same night and announced next morning, were repeatedly delayed (for 44 days),^[48] as the Election Committee revised the method of allocating votes, until the Palang Pracharat Party was able to form a coalition government.^{[49][50][46][51]}

In addition, Human Rights Watch cited political repression, media censorship, unequal media access, the role of a military-appointed Senate in appointing an unelected prime minister (the junta leader), and lack of independence and impartiality of the Election Commission as factors preventing a free and fair election.^[52] Election monitors have also criticized the election process. The Asian Network for Free Elections commented on the environment being tilted to benefit the junta, and the confused vote-counting process that created mistrust.^[53] The People Network for Elections in Thailand (P-NET) released a statement that the election was not free and fair.^[54] They cited prevalent and rampant cases of vote-buying in the North, Northeast, and Central regions. P-NET blamed the Election Commission for turning a blind eye to many of these violations. P-NET also stated that many local government officials used their authority to give an advantage to certain parties since this election had no volunteer observers.^[54]

Problems with the election also included issues with overseas voting, where poorly designed envelope labels led to mailed ballots being rejected or mis-delivered by postal services, and information pamphlets contained unclear or incorrect information.^[55][56] On election day, it became apparent that 1,500 ballots from New Zealand were misplaced during air cargo transfer and could not be delivered to counting centres in time to be considered valid.^[57][48]