Thai polls

In an address that was broadcast on national television, Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva told viewers on Tuesday that he had "full faith in their judgment" and said the election would enable the country to start "anew."

Abhisit, who heads the governing Democrat Party, faces a challenge from the opposition Puea Thai Party, the third incarnation of a Thai political party originally founded by former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

Thailand's first political test since 2007 has been scheduled for July 3.

Voters will elect 375 members of parliament and another 125 members will be nominated by the country's political parties.

Pro-Thaksin Red Shirts

In the last elections, parties aligned with Thaksin Shinawatra won a majority. Thaksin, who had been ousted from his post a year earlier, later faced corruption charges and was sentenced to two years in prison. He fled the country before the verdict was handed down but he remains very popular.

However, in 2008. pro-royalist rallies, together with court rulings against successive pro-Thaksin governments, led to Abhisit being appointed as prime minister.

The Abhisit government was then confronted by ongoing anti-government protests in 2009 and 2010. They were led by the pro-Thaksin United Democratic Front for Democracy (UDD), also known as the Red Shirts, who said that the government lacked legitimacy because it was backed by the military.

The UDD provide the grass roots support for Thaksin. Many members are from rural areas, which benefited from his populist policies when he was prime minister.

Last year, clashes between security forces and the Red Shirt protestors left more than 90 dead and hundreds injured.

The Puea Thai Party, with its Red Shirt supporters, is viewed by the conservative elite as anti-monarchist although the party leaders refute this.

Important turning point

Chris Baker, an author and specialist in Thai politics, believed that the upcoming elections would mark an important turning point for the country.

The polls will "give us some kind of reading on popular politics, which I think will cut across a lot of the while pontification that we’ve been hearing." However, he thought it would be difficult to tell what the outcome might be although polls currently show the pro-Thaksin Puea Thai winning an absolute majority.

"There's not really enough information available now to make any kind of prediction. Even if we start to get some better poll data we ought to be fairly skeptical because the polling is not very professional and people tend to lie to polling officials. It will be very difficult to gauge the likely outcome right down to the day," he told Deutsche Welle.

Despite repeated denials by military leaders, Thailand has also been wracked by rumors of a possible military coup. Thailand has faced 18 coups or attempted coups since it became a constitutional monarchy in 1932.

The campaign is likely to be a tough one. Surachart Bamrungsuk, a political scientist at Chulalongkorn University, predicts that it will be dominated by rising food prices and economic uncertainty. "Each party is proposing to solve economic issues and these will have some impact on the voters as the economy is getting so bad."

Analysts also fear the elections could end up in violence.

Author: Ron Corben
Editor: Anne Thomas