After the Election: A Look at What Happened and What's Next [S6.E41]

Greg and Ed go over the election results, with Ed leading the way and doing his best to evaluate his pre-election predictions. First, Ed discusses the obvious way the election was NOT a surprise: the conservative parties (UTN, Palang Pracharath, and the Democrats) were destroyed as expected. If anything, their decimation was even worse than expected. 

Second, Ed mentions how the election did involve somewhat of a shocker: the Move Forward Party overperformed and actually beat the Pheu Thai Party overall for total number of seats won. Ed notes that pre-election polls did show Move Forward gaining, but few people expected them to win outright. Why is this a big deal? Well, the Shinawatra spawned parties have won every election in Thailand since 2000, so these results do show a major shift in among the Thai electorate towards a Bangkok-based party. But significantly, Move Forward is a very progressive party, unlike the conservative Democrats who formerly dominated in Bangkok.

So what grade does Ed give himself on his pre-election prognostications? Well, he did correctly note that Move Forward was gaining and the Bhuamjaithai was in general conservative despite their ‘progressive’ stance on cannabis. However, Ed thought that a coalition between Move Forward and Pheu Thai would be difficult to achieve, but in fact Pheu Thai pledged to join Move Forward immediately. Grade: C+. Greg kindly chimes in with a slightly more generous assessment of B-. But either way, this is an issue that we should all be watching very closely for the next little while. 

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