{"id":31547,"date":"2017-01-02T23:01:31","date_gmt":"2017-01-02T23:01:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/thailand-legislator-general-election-will-be\/"},"modified":"2017-01-02T23:01:28","modified_gmt":"2017-01-02T23:01:28","slug":"thailand-legislator-general-election-will-be","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/thailand-legislator-general-election-will-be\/","title":{"rendered":"Thailand legislator: General election will be delayed"},"content":{"rendered":"

{Politician says vote likely to be held in 2018 in order to pass election laws for democratic transition from junta rule.}<\/p>\n

Thailand will delay a general election planned for 2017 until next year for more time to pass new voting laws as the country transitions from military to civilian rule, a member of the National Legislative Assembly says.<\/p>\n

Somjet Boonthanom told reporters on Monday the vote would likely be held in March or April of 2018, instead of this year.<\/p>\n

“This is not a postponement but because of the intricacies involved in drafting election laws, elections will not happen this year,” Somjet said.<\/p>\n

Although the military government has regularly expressed commitment to a “roadmap” for restoring democracy, the date has been pushed back every year since its May 2014 coup that overthrew the democratically elected government of Yingluck Shinawatra.<\/p>\n

However, a spokesman for the prime minister’s office said the military government was sticking to plans to hold the election in 2017.<\/p>\n

“As far as the government is concerned, we are on track with the roadmap. The NLA’s opinions are their own,” said Sansern Kaewkamnerd.<\/p>\n

The military said it toppled Yingluck’s government to enforce calm in a country divided by more than a decade of conflict between a military-backed royalist establishment and populist political forces.<\/p>\n

The next step in the transition back to democracy is for new King Maha Vajiralongkorn to endorse a constitution, which was approved in a referendum last year.<\/p>\n

Critics argue that provisions in the constitution will entrench the hold of the military even after elections.<\/p>\n

Politicians told Anadolu news agency – on the condition of anonymity – they would accept a delay in elections because of the timing of the royal cremation ceremony of recently passed King Bhumibol Adulyadej .<\/p>\n

“There are some royal prerogatives like the cremation and coronation of King Rama X [Vajiralongkorn], which would clash with the election campaign,” said one former MP. “If this is the case, we can accept a short postponement of elections.”<\/p>\n

King Vajiralongkorn recently ascended to the Thai throne following the October death of his father.<\/p>\n

\"Prime<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{Politician says vote likely to be held in 2018 in order to pass election laws for democratic transition from junta rule.} Thailand will delay a general election planned for 2017 until next year for more time to pass new voting laws as the country transitions from military to civilian rule, a member of the National […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[101],"byline":[2474],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-31547","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-internationl","byline-al-jazeera"],"bylines":[{"id":2474,"name":"AL JAZEERA","slug":"al-jazeera","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"contributors":[{"id":2474,"name":"AL JAZEERA","slug":"al-jazeera","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31547","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31547"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31547\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31547"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=31547"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=31547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}