Elections Tonight

It won't get much ink in the United States, because they are in Thailand and Turkey.

The results in Thailand are are pretty clear right now, with the opposition winning decisively, with a new party outpacing the traditional opposition.

This is notable because this party, Move Forward, was not expected to do so well, and it is the only of the Thai body politic that has expressed, even obliquely, a desire to reexamine the role of the Thai monarchy in the running of the country:

Voters in Thailand overwhelmingly sought to end nearly a decade of military rule on Sunday, casting ballots in favor of two opposition parties that have pledged to curtail the power of the country’s powerful conservative institutions: the military and the monarchy.

With 97 percent of the votes counted early Monday morning, the progressive Move Forward Party was neck and neck with the populist Pheu Thai Party. Move Forward had won 151 seats to Pheu Thai’s 141 in the 500-seat House of Representatives.

In most parliamentary systems, the two parties would form a new governing coalition and choose a prime minister. But under the rules of the current Thai system, written by the military after its 2014 coup, the junta will still play kingmaker.

The system is that there is the democratically elected House, and a Senate whose members are appointed by the military numbering 250, and to form a new government, a majority of both the House and Senate must approve, requiring 375 votes, so they will need at least 83 votes from some of the smaller opposition parties.

The current military backed party, the Palang Pracharat, appears to have lost at least half of its seats, though there was also a party that hived off of them, UTN since the last election.

The election had widely been seen as an easy victory for Pheu Thai, the country’s largest opposition party founded by former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. A billionaire tycoon, Mr. Thaksin, 73, was ousted in a coup in 2006 after accusations of corruption, but he is still fondly remembered as a populist champion for the rural poor. Polls had showed that Mr. Thaksin’s youngest daughter, Paetongtarn Shinawatra, 36, was the leading choice for prime minister.

But in a surprise, the Move Forward Party, a progressive political party that called for upending old power structures and amending a law that criminalizes public criticism of the monarchy, made stunning strides, capturing young urban voters, and the capital, Bangkok.

“We can frame this election as a referendum on traditional power centers in Thai politics,” said Napon Jatusripitak, a visiting fellow at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute. “People want change, and not just a change of government, they want structural reform.”

While Move Forward has tempered its rhetoric, it still is calling for a significant curtailment of the powers of the King, which is a very good thing.

I hope that this results in real change, but I expect it to result in another coup.

Meanwhile, in Turkey, it appears that the Turkish Presidential elections are headed toward a runoff.

This is still uncertain, Erdogan is currently less than 1% away from an absolute majority, and there is a lot of mischief that he could create using the levers of power of the Turkish state, either now, or during a runoff election.

I'd like to see Erdogon go, but I'm not optimistic:

Turkey’s presidential election appeared on Sunday to be headed for a runoff after the incumbent, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, failed to win a majority of the vote, a result that left the longtime leader struggling to stave off the toughest political challenge of his career.

The outcome of the vote set the stage for a two-week battle between Mr. Erdogan and Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the opposition leader, to secure victory in a May 28 runoff that may reshape Turkey’s political landscape.

With the unofficial count nearly completed, Mr. Erdogan received 49.4 percent of the vote to Mr. Kilicdaroglu’s 44.8 percent, according to the state-run Anadolu news agency.

But both sides claimed to be ahead.

………

I cannot claim to have my finger on the pulse of Turkish politics, but it seems to me that his reputation as being scrupulously ethical, he is best known for his anti-corruption efforts, probably had a lot to do with the close contest.

If those numbers hold, then it is likely that Erdogon would win the runoff, votes typically come in at 2 or 3 to 1 for the challenger, but Erdogon is very close to the majority now.

I would expect to see attempt to suppress the Kurdish vote in the west of the country by Turkish security forces in the next few weeks, and perhaps some jailing of members of the political opposition.