Thais Cast Ballots In Early Voting In 1st General Election Since 2014 Military Coup

BANGKOK (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 17th March, 2019) Early voting in the Thai general election was held in the kingdom and its diplomatic missions abroad on Sunday, a Sputnik correspondent reported from one of the polling stations.

In the country, the polling stations closed at 5:00 p.m. local time (10:00 GMT). According to the Thai Election Commission, more than 2.6 million people were expected to cast their votes in the early voting within the country, while over 120,000 are supposed to go to the polls in Thai embassies around the world.

The majority of voters are Thai citizens who will not be able to cast ballots on the main election day of March 24 and those who live away from the place where they are registered.

"There are much more voters who belong to the second category, especially in Bangkok, as people from all over the country, including the most distant provinces, work and run private business in the capital.

Much of this work is temporary, and they do not change the registration to Bangkok," Panidda Somsiri, an employee of Thai state-run oil company PTT, who worked at a polling station in Bangkok, told Sputnik.

She noted that the Sunday ballot papers would be counted on the election day of March 24, together with the rest of votes.

The upcoming general election in Thailand, which has been ruled by the military government since 2014 coup, will be the first since 2011. In December 2018, the government lifted the ban on political gatherings and canvassing, which had been in force for more than four years.