Polls opened Sunday for the first Thai election since a 2014 coup, with a high turnout expected among a public who received a cryptic last-minute warning from the Thai king to support “good” leaders to prevent “chaos.”
All television stations repeated the rare statement by King Maha Vajiralongkorn moments before polls opened across the politically turbulent country.
Thailand is a constitutional monarchy and the palace is ostensibly above the political fray.
But the institution retains unassailable powers and is insulated from criticism by a harsh royal defamation law.
Sunday’s election pits a royalist junta and its allies against the election-winning machine of billionaire ex-premier Thaksin Shinawatra and an unpredictable wave of millions of first-time voters.
The kingdom remains bitterly divided despite the ruling junta’s pledge to rescue it from a decade-long treadmill of protests and coups.
Politicians across the spectrum fear a stalemate has been booked-in by new election rules, written by the junta, which limit the chances of any single party emerging with a comfortable parliamentary majority.
After years of democratic denial, enthusiastic voters turned out across the country.
“People want to vote,” said businesswoman Apiyada Svarachorn at a Bangkok polling station, adding the public remains “split into two sides”.
“We don’t have the right to decide for ourselves for five years now,” added Wasa Anupant, a 28-year-old doctor.
“I’m very excited about this election.”
The palace statement, unprecedented on an election eve in recent history, added further intrigue to a vote that has repeatedly threatened to tip into chaos before a single ballot was cast.
The statement reiterated comments by late king Bhumibol Adulyadej from 1969 calling for people to “support good people to govern the society and control the bad people” to prevent them from “creating chaos”.
Vajiralongkorn urged the public to “remember and be aware” of the remarks of his father, who died in 2016.
