TEHRAN, Mar 24 - Polls opened Sunday for the first Thai election since a 2014 coup, with a high turnout expected among a public who received a cryptic last-minute warning from the Thai king to support "good" leaders to prevent "chaos."
TEHRAN, Young Journalists Club (YJC) - All television stations repeated the rare statement by King Maha Vajiralongkorn moments before polls opened across the politically turbulent country.
Thailand is a constitutional monarchy and the palace is ostensibly above the political fray.
But the institution retains unassailable powers and is insulated from criticism by a harsh royal defamation law.
Sunday's election pits a royalist junta and its allies against the election-winning machine of billionaire ex-premier Thaksin Shinawatra and an unpredictable wave of millions of first-time voters.
The kingdom remains bitterly divided despite the ruling junta's pledge to rescue it from a decade-long treadmill of protests and coups.
Source: AFP
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