SAWT BEIRUT INTERNATIONAL

| 11 February 2025, Tuesday |

First Thai parliament meeting after May election set for July 3

Thailand’s newly elected parliamentarians will convene in legislative session for the first time on July 3, according to a royal order published on the official royal gazette website on Saturday.

Following the general election in May, the order sets in motion the establishment of a new government, with the vote to elect a new prime minister likely to take place in July.

The country’s election commission on Monday certified the winners of all 500 seats of the lower house which must convene within early July to elect a speaker and two deputies. The speaker will then call for a joint session of parliament between the elected lower house and the appointed senate to vote on a new prime minister.

The progressive Move Forward party pulled off a stunning victory in the May 14 ballot, closely followed by the populist Pheu Thai party, thrashing conservative rivals allied with the royalist military after nine years of government led or backed by the army.

An eight-party alliance made up of the opposition is expected to back Move Forward’s Harvard-educated leader Pita Limjaroenrat for prime minister and form a coalition government, likely within the next month.

The alliance has control of 321 seats, still short of the 376 needed in the vote for the next premier. To elect Pita prime minister the alliance will have to must a majority of the 500 seats in the lower house and the 250 seats in the senate. The senators were appointed under military rule after a 2014 coup.

The Move Forward Party won the election on an anti-establishment platform that has put it on a collision course with conservatives royalist generals and old-money business elite that have long controlled Thai politics.

    Source:
  • Reuters