Sunderland

There are multiple constituencies in Thailand - try for yourself here https://www.ectreport.com/overview - where Bhumjaithai, Palang Prachart and the United Thai Nation Party have won constituency seats, but failed miserably in the Party List vote in the same constituency. The voting in many of these areas makes no sense. Massive numbers of votes for Anutin, Prawit or Prayuth's party for the candidate, then Move Forward and/or Pheu Thai get far and away the most votes in the Party List from the same constituency. In the UK, it would be like voting for the Tory candidate, and then voting again for the party but putting your cross next to the Labour Party. It's pure nonsense.

But the people are not voting much for Bhumjaithai on the party list.

Here is an example: Surat Thani (area 6) Constituency: 1 BJT 793 2 UTN 361 3 MF 140 4 PT 87 5 Dems 46 Party List: 1 MF 390 2 UTN 358 3 PT 137 4 Dems 120 5 BJT 95 BJT 793 (Con) 95 (Party) MF 140 (Con) 390 (Party) Lots of this to be seen at the Election Commission's webiste: https://www.ectreport.com/overview

Bhumjaithai are predicted to win 63 of the 400 constituency seats despite having 1/7 - 1/8 of the votes that both Move Forward and Pheu Thai are getting on the party list voting. So their share of the party list vote is way down, but they are winning more constituencies than last time (39). How does that make any sense???

I agree. Not sure how so many people would vote for Bhumjaithai for their local representative in somewhere like Ranong and have Move Forward second. Then vote overwhelmingly for Move Forward on the party list and have BJT as the 4th most popular choice. Lots of areas looking like that. Collectively Pheu Thai and Move Forward should be sweeping about 70% of the seats, but more likely to end up with somewhere between 50 and 55% due to weird voting on the constituency ballots.

Well over 70% of the early party list voting is for Pheu Thai or Move Forward. The constituency votes are baffling. In many cases the incumbent parties are leading constituency races, but getting a small fraction of the votes on the party list nomination. Almost like voting for Trump on one ballot and then voting for the Democrats on the other.

What has become of the tomato police? Are they now the lemon or lime police?

I don't think they (his supporters) will accept that unless the real criminals who regularly steal power from the population also do jail time.

And the institution will back or create chaos again if it means they can intervene and take control again. The army's role is to protect the country, not divide it.

IMHO, the biggest criminals are those who steal power from the citizens, however the public voted.

I think generation Z will mostly vote for Move Forward, but if they live in rural communities, they may be "persuaded" to follow whatever the local head honcho tells them to do. Generation Y are a big bloc of votes and I think their vote will be split between Move Forward and Pheu Thai with obviously some local voting preferences meaning other parties winning more votes in places like Buriram with Bhumjaithai. Generation X is another very important bloc. I can see their votes being a little more widely distributed especially among older members of that group. However, the main two opposition parties should pick up a decent proportion of votes in more urban areas. The remaining voters made up of baby boomers and the silent generation will probably have a bigger number of conservative voters who will vote for people like Prawit and Prayuth. They never learn and they don't follow social media in the same way as the groups above. They tend to rely on the state (army) media for more of their news. Fascinating to watch the results come in later. Curious to see just how many (or few) votes and seats the United Thai Nation Party and Palang Pracharath get. Hoping Bhumjaithai receive a lot less votes too to knock Anutin down a couple of pegs. The burning question is will Peua Thai and Move Forward win enough seats to form a coalition that will negate the power held by the military backed senate? They will need to win about 75% of the seats and have the same common goals, plus need to back the same person for PM. Interesting hours lie ahead.

Is there a real point to this story? Replace the word virus with rhinovirus, coronavirus, flu or cold. At 80 years old, anything can knock you out if your immune system is not as sharp as it once was.

Thailand is a parody of itself without attemting to do so.

It would be nice if a certain army never resorted to illegal coups. Then the word wouldn't have to be mentioned anyway. Buffoons!

WHO ... haha. What a laughing stock they have been.

The news is a constant parody of .... the news. I recently returned from a month in Europe. Life in Thailand continues to feel like living in a surreal dream.

UTN's target is a mere 25 seats to allow Uncle Wotsit to be nominated as a PM.

Good luck with that ... cough, cough, splutter, splutter.

The updated WHO guidelines state that annual average concentrations of PM2.5 should not exceed 5 µg/m3, while 24-hour average exposures should not exceed 15 µg/m3 more than 3 - 4 days per year. Interim targets have been set to support the planning of incremental milestones toward cleaner air, particularly for cities, regions and countries that are struggling with high air pollution levels. For PM2.5 these are: 35 µg/m3 annual mean, 75 µg/m3 24-hour mean. (level 1) 25 µg/m3 annual mean, 50 µg/m3 24-hour mean. (level 2) 15 µg/m3 annual mean, 37.5 µg/m3 24-hour mean. (level 3) 10 µg/m3 annual mean, 25 µg/m3 24-hour mean. (level 4) Therefore, Thailand is aiming to scrape the barrel and seek to achieve the lowest interim target.

Ashamed to have a coronavirus? Wow! Are they also ashamed of having a rhinovirus?

There is an annual death rate of approximately 8 per 1,000 people in Thailand. Based on a population of around 70 million, that is about 560,000 deaths per year or just over 1,500 per day.

If you think like that at this stage of the pandemic, then you will be wearing a mask forever. And your advice would be for everyone in the world to wear a mask to try and prevent every virus - including colds - to spread. You may wish to choose to wear a mask forever, but the rest of the world has mostly moved on and is getting on with life as "normal", not this "new normal" nonsense.

Clean the bloomin' air you lazy wotsits.

I agree with that, but good luck finding a landlord in an apartment that would do that. For rental of houses and condos, it absolutely should be a condition of the agreement to rent.

It's tragic, isn't it? Condolences to all the monkeys.