Opposition leads in Thailand’s general election: Electoral body

Bangkok, May 15 (SocialNews.XYZ) The opposition parties are leading the general election of Thailand, showed the unofficial result released by the electoral body.

According to the live update on the vote counting released by the country's Election Commission on Sunday, nearly 80 per cent of the votes have been counted by midnight.

The two major opposition parties, the Move Forward Party and the Pheu Thai Party were almost on par in the race for the 400 constituency seats in the House of Representatives or the lower house of parliament where they were forecasted to capture half of the seats, Xinhua news agency reported.

The Move Forward Party, with wide support among young voters, emerged strong in the election and was leading in the separate poll to decide the 100 party-list seats in the house, with more than 9.9 million votes ahead of Pheu Thai's 7.8 million votes.

Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha's Ruam from the Thai Sang Chart Party (United Thai Nation Party) is projected to take nearly 24 constituency seats but was ranked third in the party list poll with more than 3.2 million votes.

More than 52 million Thai citizens were eligible to vote in the election. Under the two-ballot system with one vote for the 400 constituency members of parliament (MPs) and another for their preferred party vying for the 100 party-list MPs, voters will elect a total of 500 members to the House of Representatives.

The Election Commission is yet to announce the preliminary allocation of the 100 party-list seats. After the tally is finished, the official results are pending verification by the Election Commission, which is expected to be completed within 60 days.

The new MPs will then join the 250 senators to elect a new Prime Minister with a simple majority in accordance with the 2017 constitution.

Source: IANS