The calculation of party-list MPs by Election Commission favours pro-junta parties as it slices down the opposition. Here’s how it works step-by-step. 

While the confronting political ideologies in western countries are the left and the right, their counterparts in Thai politics are moral politics and the politics of economic inequality. These ideologies will be represented through political parties in the upcoming election. In the 2018 elections, policies will not and cannot be a decisive factor since politicians have to conform to the NCPO’s National Strategic Plan which provides a policy framework that future governments have to follow for the next 20 years.

On May 22, 2014 the Thai military, led by General Prayuth Chan-ocha, staged a coup d’état to end several months of political and civil chaos in Thailand. At its very basic level, the chaos was caused by an on-going conflict between the so-called ‘red-shirts’, followers of the government of Yingluck Shinawatra’s Pheu Thai party and comprising the rural voters forming a majority of the electorate, and the ‘yellow-shirts’, an alliance between the military, the Thai elite, and the middle-class Democrat party of Abhisit Vejjajiva with a strong following in Bangkok.

On 25 August 2017, the Supreme Court will deliver its verdict on the historic case of former Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, who stands accused of causing billions of baht in losses through her administration’s controversial rice-pledging scheme (RPS). Prachatai has gathered 10 important facts about the historic case, which will set a standard for future public policy and almost certainly deepen political divisions regardless of the outcome.

The military has summoned an outspoken politician from the Pheu Thai Party to a military base for refusing to take part in the junta’s controversial reconciliation process. On 26 February 2017, Watana Muangsook, an embattled Pheu Thai politician, posted on his Facebook account that a military commander of the 21st Infantry Regiment had summoned him for a discussion.