Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul's Bhumjaithai Party has taken an early lead in a general election although the three-way battle is unlikely to give any single party a clear majority, potentially prolonging the spectre of political instability.
Anutin set the stage for the snap election in mid-December, amid a raging border conflict between Thailand and Cambodia, in what analysts said was a move timed by the conservative leader to cash in on surging nationalism.
At that point, he had been in power for less than 100 days, taking over after the ouster of prime minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra of the populist Pheu Thai Party over the Cambodian crisis.
Thai voters turned out in numbers on Sunday.
Polls closed at 5pm and preliminary results were trickling in throughout the evening.
With about 30 per cent of polling stations reporting, the first partial results released by the election commission showed the Bhumjaithai Party with a commanding lead over People's Party in second place, followed by the Pheu Thai Party.
Pheu Thai, backed by the billionaire former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who himself went to jail just days after his daughter's removal, is down but not out, according to surveys.
"We have done everything that we can," Anutin told reporters, after casting his vote in the Bhumjaithai Party's stronghold of Buriram city, northeast of Bangkok.
"We hope the people will have confidence in us."
The progressive People's Party, with its message of structural change and reforms to the economy, had led most opinion polls during the campaign season.
The People's Party is the successor to the Move Forward Party, which won the most House seats in 2023, but was blocked from forming a government by conservative MPs and then forced to dissolve.
"This election is about whether Thailand will get out of its rut, whether Thailand will break out of its political instability and economic doldrums that have persisted," said Thitinan Pongsudhirak, a political scientist at Bangkok's Chulalongkorn University.
"My preliminary conclusion, I'm afraid to say, is that it will not break out."
Thai voters were also asked on Sunday to decide if a new constitution should replace a 2017 charter, a military-backed document that critics say concentrated power in undemocratic institutions, including a powerful senate that is chosen through an indirect selection process with limited public participation.
The election commission's early count showed voters backing the referendum by a margin of nearly two to one.
Thailand has had 20 constitutions since the end of absolute monarchy in 1932, with most of the changes following military coups.
If voters back the drafting of a new national charter, the new government and lawmakers can start the amendment process in parliament with two more referendums required to adopt a new constitution.
with AP
