{"id":36962,"date":"2023-05-07T03:50:03","date_gmt":"2023-05-07T03:50:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/thai-voters-cast-early\/"},"modified":"2023-05-07T03:54:05","modified_gmt":"2023-05-07T03:54:05","slug":"thai-voters-cast-early","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/thai-voters-cast-early\/","title":{"rendered":"Thai voters cast early ballots one week before election"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>BANGKOK (Reuters) &#8211;     Many Thais lined up on Sunday in long queues to vote early in parliamentary elections scheduled for May 14.<\/p>\n<p>More than 2 million Thais had registered for early voting out of 52 million eligible voters who are aged 18 and above, according to the country&#8217;s election commission.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I wish to see change and improvement in management,&#8221; said 51-year-old Gosol Pungtaku, one of the 800,000 Bangkok residents who registered for one-day-only early voting in the capital.<\/p>\n<p>Another voter, 34-year-old Siriporn Namphet, said she voted for change.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Its like having seen what the previous government has done and now hoping for a new administration to take over and govern more effectively,&#8221; she told Reuters.<\/p>\n<p>The election could upset the status quo after more than eight years of a conservative pro-military government led by former army chief Prayuth Chan-ocha.<\/p>\n<p>Prayuth, 69, who first seized power in a 2014 coup and remained prime minister after the 2019 election that critics said was rigged to favour the junta leader, a charge the government denied, is trailing far behind opposition parties in recent opinion polls.<\/p>\n<p>Opposition Pheu Thai Party, a populist group that won five general elections before 2019 and was ousted by Prayuth in the coup, is leading in most polls followed by the progressive Move Forward Party.<\/p>\n<p>The election is for the 500-seat House of Representatives.<\/p>\n<p \/>\n<p> (Reporting by Napat Wesshasartar and Artorn Pookasook, writing by Panu Wongcha-um; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/thai-voters-cast-early\/people-cast-their-early-vote-for-the-upcoming-thailands-general\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-content\/uploads\/Reuters_Direct_Media\/USOnlineReportWorldNews\/tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ46011-VIEWIMAGE.jpg\" alt=\"tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ46011-VIEWIMAGE\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/thai-voters-cast-early\/people-line-up-for-their-early-vote-for-thailands-upcoming\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-content\/uploads\/Reuters_Direct_Media\/USOnlineReportWorldNews\/tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ4600X-VIEWIMAGE.jpg\" alt=\"tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ4600X-VIEWIMAGE\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/thai-voters-cast-early\/a-man-looks-at-the-lists-of-the-candidates-as\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-content\/uploads\/Reuters_Direct_Media\/USOnlineReportWorldNews\/tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ4600V-VIEWIMAGE.jpg\" alt=\"tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ4600V-VIEWIMAGE\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/thai-voters-cast-early\/a-man-casts-his-early-vote-for-the-upcoming-thai\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-content\/uploads\/Reuters_Direct_Media\/USOnlineReportWorldNews\/tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ4600Z-VIEWIMAGE.jpg\" alt=\"tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ4600Z-VIEWIMAGE\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/thai-voters-cast-early\/people-line-up-for-their-early-vote-for-thailands-upcoming-2\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-content\/uploads\/Reuters_Direct_Media\/USOnlineReportWorldNews\/tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ4600Y-VIEWIMAGE.jpg\" alt=\"tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ4600Y-VIEWIMAGE\"><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>BANGKOK (Reuters) &#8211; Many Thais lined up on Sunday in long queues to vote early in parliamentary elections scheduled for May 14. More than 2 million Thais had registered for early voting out of 52 million eligible voters who are aged 18 and above, according to the country&#8217;s election commission. &#8220;I wish to see change [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":36963,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1222],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36962","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-u-s-world-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-content\/uploads\/Reuters_Direct_Media\/USOnlineReportWorldNews\/tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ46011-VIEWIMAGE.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36962","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36962"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36962\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36968,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36962\/revisions\/36968"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}