Thai general election, 2014
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All 500 seats to the House of Representatives of Thailand 251 seats needed for a majority |
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Early general elections were held in Thailand on Sunday, 2 February 2014, after Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra asked King Bhumibol Adulyadej to dissolve parliament more than a year early owing to Thailand's political crisis. Voters elected a new House of Representatives, the lower house of the National Assembly. Voting was disrupted in 69 of 375 constituencies by the opposition that had called for a boycott. This made a re-run in several stages necessary, depending on the security situation in the affected districts. The first re-run date was on 2 March. Results are not to be announced before voting has taken place in all parts of the country.
On 21 March 2014, Thailand's Constitutional Court invalidated the election on grounds that it was not completed within one day throughout the nation.
After the ruling Pheu Thai Party attempted to pass an amnesty bill, the opposition accused them of seeking to bring back former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who is in self-imposed exile following his conviction for abuse of power. Protests then occurred, sometimes violent, which included demands for the government to resign and the Shinawatra family to quit Thai politics. Following a mass resignation of opposition MPs, on 9 December Yingluck said in a televised address that she had asked the King to dissolve parliament in order to allow the Thai people to resolve the crisis. She said: "At this stage, when there are many people opposed to the government from many groups, the best way is to give back the power to the Thai people and hold an election, so the Thai people will decide." However, anti-government protest leader Suthep Thaugsuban said that the protests would continue till their demands are met, including the formation of an unelected "people's council", as "we have not yet reached our goal. The dissolving of parliament is not our aim." Yingluck also said that she would not resign ahead of the election.
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