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Thailand to hold election early next year after PM Anutin dissolves parliament
Thailand’s military said the coming election would not affect its operations against Cambodia amid a renewed border conflict
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Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul dissolved parliament on Friday, setting the stage for an early election after a major political party backing his minority government threatened to withdraw its support.
Anutin said in a Facebook post late on Thursday that he would “return power to the people”. Hours later, King Maha Vajiralongkorn endorsed Anutin’s recommendation to dissolve the 500-member House of Representatives – a formality under the Thai constitution.
Under Thai rules, an election must be held between 45 and 60 days of the house dissolution, meaning voters in the Southeast Asian nation will be headed to polling stations as early as the end of January.
Anutin’s decision to disband parliament came after the rupture of a deal with the main opposition party that put him in power.
The split was over who gets to control the rewriting of the country’s constitution, whose current iteration was scripted by military-aligned lawmakers.
The People’s Party, Thailand’s main pro-democracy force which won the last poll in 2023 but was still pushed into the opposition, said an amendment backed by Anutin’s Bhumjaithai Party to give unelected senators an effective veto over drafts of a new constitution before it is put to a public referendum had broken their pact.
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