A general election kicked off on Sunday (May 14) in Thailand, where a new set of parliamentarians in the House of Representatives will be elected to form the next government.
About 52 million people are eligible to cast their votes nationwide before the polls close at 5pm.
More than 2 million people had already turned up for early voting on May 7.
A total of 500 members of the House of Representatives will be elected on Sunday.
Four hundred of them will be chosen in constituency elections. The other 100 will be elected from the national party lists – a type of proportional representation where multiple candidates are elected from a list prepared by their respective parties, based on the total votes the party receives.
In the constituency elections, 400 seats are up for grabs and 4,710 candidates are competing for them. On the national party lists, there are nearly 1,900 parliamentary candidates from 67 parties.
Each voter will receive two ballots – one for the constituency and the other for the party list.
According to the final poll on the election by The National Institute of Development Administration (NIDA), the most popular prime ministerial candidate was Pita Limjaroenrat.
The 42-year-old is the leader and sole prime ministerial candidate of the Move Forward Party. His popularity grew quickly over the past few months.
In second place with 29.20 percent was Paetongtarn Shinawatra, 36, from the Pheu Thai Party. She is the youngest daughter of former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted from power in a military coup in 2006.
Her aunt, Yingluck Shinawatra, was also a former prime minister of Thailand. Her democratically elected government was toppled by a military coup in 2014 led by then-army chief Prayut Chan-o-cha.
The third spot went to incumbent Prime Minister Prayut with 14.84 per cent. The 69-year-old retired general is running under the banner of a new party called the United Thai Nation, hoping to stay on in power after more than eight years in the job.
Unofficial results of the election on Sunday should become available from 6.30pm onwards, according to the Election Commission of Thailand (ECT).
Votes will be counted at polling stations before the unofficial results are submitted to the ECT’s database.
