Thailand Election News

Thailand election news, campaign updates, candidate profiles, and policy analysis—stay informed on regional and national elections with real-time coverage. Get the latest from The Thaiger, your trusted source for election news in Thailand

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  • Thaksin is in Hong Kong. Thailand wants to extradite him.

    Thaksin is in Hong Kong. Thailand wants to extradite him.

    The exiled former Thai PM, Thaksin Shinawatra, is in Hong Kong to be part of the wedding party in the marriage of his youngest daughter Paetongtarn ‘Ing’ Shinawatra to a commercial pilot, Pidok Sooksawas. Thai authorities are seeking the extradition of the exiled former PM from Hong Kong, according to local HK media. Many of the powerful Shinawatra clan are…

  • Choosing sides. Abhisit Vejjajiva will have to choose after Sunday.

    Choosing sides. Abhisit Vejjajiva will have to choose after Sunday.

    PHOTO: The Nation Sunday’s election will not be the end, it will only be another episode in a two-decade long drama as Thailand struggles with democracy and attempts to throw off the shackles of nearly a century of military tampering in political affairs. Thailand’s oldest political party, the Democrats, head into Sunday’s election with leader Abhisit Vejjajiva facing some tough…

  • Premchai verdict and prison sentence comes just 5 days before the election

    Premchai verdict and prison sentence comes just 5 days before the election

    Premchai Karnasutra, once listed among Thailand’s richest people, has been found guilty in a Kanchanaburi court of poaching protected animals, and sentenced to 16 months in jail. Wildlife rangers arrested the 64 year old tycoon along with four other associates in the Thungyai Naresuan nature reserve, a world heritage site in Kanchanaburi in February last year. The incident has caused…

  • EC claims yesterday’s ballots are safe and secure

    EC claims yesterday’s ballots are safe and secure

    PHOTO: Pattaya Mail The Election Commission says all yesterday’s ballots are secure. They’ve told a suspicious media that they, and members of political parties, are allowed to check the security of yesterday’s paper ballots at Thai Post offices and police stations around the country where they are being stored before heading to Thailand Post’s HQ in Bangkok today. The EC…

  • Thais vote today as registered absentees in the lead up to next week’s election

    Thais vote today as registered absentees in the lead up to next week’s election

    PHOTO: 98 year old Prem Tinsulanonda, president of the Privy Council – Bangkok Post Arlina Arshad, Regional Correspondent – Straits Times Hundreds of thousands of voters across Thailand are heading out today to cast early ballots, a week ahead the country’s first general election – the first time Thais have voted since 2011 and since the military took control in…

  • Don’t drink and vote – 24 hour alcohol ban starts at 6pm

    Don’t drink and vote – 24 hour alcohol ban starts at 6pm

    Police are out and about in Thailand’s popular tourist zones warning people that there will be an election alcohol ban starting at 6 tonight, for 24 hours. There will also be a ban next weekend as well. Nobody appears to have told the police and officials that international tourists don’t vote. “No selling of alcohol will be allowed from 6…

  • 24 hour alcohol ban starts tonight, another one next week – Election

    24 hour alcohol ban starts tonight, another one next week – Election

    Alcohol is officially banned from sale or distribution from 6pm tonight. It’s all part of the pre-voting for next week’s Thai national election, the first since 2011. Sales and the distribution of alcoholic drinks are banned from 6pm tonight (Saturday) for 24 hours. Police say violations of the ban are punishable by imprisonment of up to six months or a…

  • Prayut and Thanathorn cleared to proceed with election

    Prayut and Thanathorn cleared to proceed with election

    Future Forward’s Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit and PM Gen Prayut Chan-o-cha have been cleared to proceed with the election. Future Forward’s young leader Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit has now been cleared by the Thai Election Commission of any wrongdoing over an alleged posting of misleading information in his biography on the party’s website. EC secretary-general Jarungvidh Phumma says that a complaint filed by Srisuwan…

  • Thailand’s future is dissolving right before our eyes

    Thailand’s future is dissolving right before our eyes

    by Edward KitlertsirivatanaWhen an animal is cornered, with no other options, its survival instinct kicks in. It will fight tooth and nail for its life. With the dissolution of Thai Raksa Chart party, attempts to dissolve other rival parties are in the air. You can smell it. If they were to be dissolved, desperate measures may materialise. And it doesn’t…

  • “Nothing to do with the election” – Deputy PM Prawit

    “Nothing to do with the election” – Deputy PM Prawit

    Senior government security officials are claiming the series of bomb blasts last weekend in the southern provinces of Phatthalung and Satun are related to insurgency activities in the predominantly Muslim region. They say there is no connection with the upcoming election and that the timing is just co-incidence. The South has been racked by violence from an ongoing insurgency since…

  • Long queues and poor arrangements greet early Thai voters in KL

    Long queues and poor arrangements greet early Thai voters in KL

    PHOTO: Thai PBS A long queue of waiting voters spilled out of the Thai embassy compound in Kuala Lumpur during yesterday’s early voting. Over 4,000 Thai nationals working in Malaysia turned up at the Thai embassy in KL yesterday to cast their ballots. The actual Thai election day is on March 24 but foreign embassies provide opportunities for Thai expats to cast their vote…

  • The maths of March 24 – Thailand Election 2019

    The maths of March 24 – Thailand Election 2019

    by Tim Newton The views of the writer do not necessarily reflect the views of The Thaiger or its business partners. Since it was first formed in 2008, along with the previous incarnations that swept Thaksin Shinawatra to power in the early 2000s, the Pheu Thai party has remained the dominant force in Thai politics. In 2011 it brought Thaksin’s…

  • Constitutional Court dissolves Thai Raksa Chart party and bans party members

    Constitutional Court dissolves Thai Raksa Chart party and bans party members

    The Thai Constitutional Court has ordered the dissolution of Thai Raksa Chart Party for naming Prince Ubolratana, a member of the Royal Family, as its prime ministerial candidate. The Court claims this action undermined Thailand’s constitutional monarchy. The court has also banned all 14 members of the party’s executive board from politics for 10 years in a stunning decision that…

  • Security tight ahead of Thai Raksa Chart verdict

    Security tight ahead of Thai Raksa Chart verdict

    Security is tight this morning in and around the Constitutional Court building as the court is due to deliver its verdict on the fate of the pro-Thaksin Thai Raksa Chart party. Four sniffer dogs, special-forces police and a bomb disposal team thoroughly searched the area of the court building for firearms and explosives. The number of surveillance cameras has been…

  • Thanathorn’s “unfinished 1932 mission” questioned

    Thanathorn’s “unfinished 1932 mission” questioned

    PHOTO: Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit appears on Channel 3 “May I ask what is the 1932 unfinished mission that Thanathorn, the party leader, announced he will complete?” The Future Forward party leader Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit’s controversial remarks, that one of the party’s policies is to complete the ‘unfinished mission of the 1932 coup makers’, has provoked a strong reaction among Thai royalists. The…

  • Future Forward deputy leader admits sharing fake news

    Future Forward deputy leader admits sharing fake news

    The Future Forward party deputy leader Lt-Gen Pongsakorn Rodchompoo has told the Technology Crime Suppression Division police that he shared a fake news story about Deputy PM Prawit Wongsuwan. But he claims he had no way of knowing that it was fake. Thai PBS reports that Pol Lt-Gen Surachet Hakparn, commissioner of the Immigration Bureau, posted in Facebook today saying…