Thailand’s liberal opposition tops polls as election looms

BANGKOK - Thailand’s progressive opposition People’s Party and its leader are most favoured among voters for February’s general election, two surveys showed, underlining the stiff challenge facing Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul’s bid to stay in power.

Thailand’s Feb 8 election

could usher in a new round of turmoil in the country, and will be a showdown between the anti-establishment People’s Party, Mr Anutin’s conservative Bhumjaithai and the former ruling party Pheu Thai, with bitter histories of betrayal that could complicate efforts to form a government.

The People’s Party was backed by 34.2 per cent of respondents in a Jan 6-9 poll by Suan Dusit released on Jan 11, with Bhumjaithai second on 16.2 per cent and the once-dominant Pheu Thai on 16 per cent.

People’s Party head and opposition leader Natthaphong Ruengpanyawut was the top choice for prime minister among 32 per cent of the 2,682 people surveyed, followed by Pheu Thai’s Associate Professor Yodchanan Wongsawat on 17.4 per cent and Mr Anutin third on 15.1 per cent.

With huge support among young and urban Thais for its bold reform agenda, the People’s Party’s predecessor

Move Forward won the most votes

in the 2023 election but was blocked from power by lawmakers allied with the royalist military.

Move Forward was later dissolved by a court in one of a series of dramatic twists in an unrelenting cycle of upheaval that has seen three Thai premiers in less than three years.

Mr Anutin called a snap election on Dec 12 after less than 100 days in office during a turbulent parliamentary session that could have led to a no-confidence vote and the collapse of his fragile minority government. It came also as Thailand’s military was embroiled in a fierce three-week border conflict with Cambodia.

A poll released on Jan 11 by the National Institute for Development Administration (NIDA) also showed Mr Natthaphong as the top choice for premier, backed by 24.7 per cent of the people surveyed, followed closely by Mr Anutin with 20.8 per cent and Mr Yodchanan fifth on 9.6 per cent.

NIDA’s Jan 5-8 survey of 2,500 people showed the People’s Party as the most popular with about 30.5 per cent of support, followed by Bhumjaithai at 22.3 per cent.

The billionaire Shinawatra family’s Pheu Thai was third, picked by 15.4 per cent of respondents, indicating declining support for the populist outfit following the collapse of its government in September after Ms Paetongtarn Shinawatra’s sacking by a court and the jailing of its influential founder Thaksin Shinawatra. REUTERS