Pheu Thai’s Viroj Pao-in, Future Forward’s Thanthorn Jungroongruangkit, Seri Ruam Thai’s Sereephisut Temeeyaves, Prachachat Thai’s Wan Muhamad Noor Matha, Puea Chat’s Songkram Kitlertphairoj and Phalang Puangchon Thai’s Nikom Boonviset ratified the statement in front of scores of reporters.

They urged parties that remain non-committal to join the effort to stop the junta from clinging to power.

The Bhumjaithai Party, which won at least 39 constituency MP seats on Sunday, is in the spotlight as a possible kingmaker in the post-election equation.

It had been suggested that the Pheu Thai-led coalition could lure Bhumjaithai by offering its leader Anutin Charnvirakul the prime minister’s post.

But Pheu Thai secretary general Phumtham Wehcayachai on Wednesday denied there was any such deal on offer and that the nomination of a premier would be discussed later.

He said Pheu Thai had never offered to yield the post to Anutin.

Facing a major public outcry over suspicious election processes and problematic vote counting, the EC has been warned by both international and local election observers to promptly resolve all public doubts and prevent the escalation of political problems and conflicts.

During the release of an interim report by Asian Network for Free Election (ANFREL) in Bangkok yesterday, the network’s official Amael Vier said the election did not meet international standards in terms of fairness and trustworthiness.

He said that though ANFREL observers say the balloting had gone quite smoothly, they still detected many fundamental shortcomings, which could destroy people’s trust and eventually invalidate this election’s results. The observers monitored the election at 492 polling stations across 30 provinces from the start of the voting until the votes were being counted.

He said some of the serious flaws included overly restrictive regulations regarding the validity of ballot marks, poor education among the public – which contributed to the unusually high 2.8 million invalid ballots – lack of participation of relevant stakeholders and unfair rules that heavily tilted the tally to benefit pro-junta parties.

Chiewpirun Chaoon, coordinator of We Watch Network, a group of local observers, said his network has received more than 2,000 reports of electoral fraud and other issues from volunteer election observers nationwide.

“Our 4,000 volunteers nationwide witnessed many cases of suspicious conduct and procedures by EC and local officials,” Chiewpirun said. “Volunteers were not even allowed into some polling stations to monitor the process, which is a clear obstruction in making the poll transparent.”

Due to these problems, ANFREL’s Vier suggested that the EC immediately address these flaws and clear every suspicion by making the election process transparent and announcing the official results as soon as possible.

“The lack of transparency and cooperation between the EC and other electoral stakeholders has severely limited the outflow of information, thereby fuelling distrust in the process and the institution itself,” Vier said.

“The EC could have improved the quality of the process by doing more to disseminate information on the polling procedures, which could have alleviated much of the public’s doubts regarding the process.”

Meanwhile, Maja Kocijancic, spokesperson for the European Union’s foreign affairs and security policy, congratulated Thailand for successfully holding a first fully-contested election since 2011, but also urged the authorities to announce the election result as quickly as possible.

“The democratic election constitutes an important step towards restoring a democratic form of governance and Thai citizens have participated in large numbers to this exercise, to shape the future of their country,” Kocijancic said.

“We look forward to the announcement of the election results as soon as possible. It is also important that any reported irregularities are resolved swiftly and transparently.”

Peter Haymond, the US Embassy’s charge d’affaires, echoed Kocijancic, saying his country looks forward to hearing the final outcome of the first general election after many years of junta rule in the country.

 EC members yesterday met for over three hours before deciding not to count the 1,542 ballots cast in advance voting by Thai expatriates in New Zealand.

The ballots, transported by air to Thailand, failed to arrive at their intended polling stations in time for vote counting on Sunday.

The anti-junta Future Forward Party threatened to take legal action against the commissioners for alleged malfeasance if they failed to call new voting in constituencies where officials manning polling stations were accused of unfair practices.

Future Forward executives yesterday submitted their request for the EC to disclose all key data about Sunday’s general election. They cited the Official Information Act.

Klaikong Vaidayakarn, the party’s registrar, said the request was for the EC to disclose information such as the number of eligible voters, voter turnout, number of ballot papers for polling stations, ballots considered void, and the votes each candidate obtained.

“Disclosure of such information can help reduce the possibility of election fraud,” Klaikong said.

He claimed there were attempts to reduce the number of votes Future Forward had got in many areas throughout the country.

A Future Forward candidate in Bangkok, Adisorn Pho-arn, yesterday said certain election officials in Constituency 5 had acted unfairly in favour of candidates from the pro-junta Phalang Pracharat Party while counting votes.

He demanded that the EC decide within three days whether to call new voting in the constituency. “If they fail to make things clear, I will sue the EC for dereliction of duty,” he said.

The anti-junta Pheu Thai Party yesterday pressured the EC to ensure fair treatment amid alleged interventions and manipulations.

“We just want fairness in this election. It has been alleged that special power was used to interfere with the election,” Pheu Thai secretary-general Phumtham Wechayachai said.

He also asked the EC to announce the votes obtained by the candidates as soon as possible, to avoid accusations the EC was “fixing the numbers”.

An online campaign at the Change.org website for impeachment of Thailand’s election commissioners obtained support from 757,000 netizens yesterday evening. The goal was to gather 1 million supporters.

The campaign’s leaders explained on its page that it was launched after Sunday’s election showed signs of irregularities and was faced with a lot of allegations.

Meanwhile, the European Union called for the election results to be announced as soon as possible.

“We look forward to the announcement of the election results as soon as possible. It is also important that any reported irregularities are resolved swiftly and transparently,” the EU said in a statement.

Yesterday, there were media reports of unqualified persons being listed as eligible voters in Sunday’s election.

A Facebook user under the name Anusara Pholboon posted a message that her three-month-old son was listed as an eligible voter. It was also reported that a seven-year-old girl and a woman who had died 20 years ago were among separate lists of eligible voters.

As of yesterday, the election agency ordered removal of content in 68 social media accounts deemed violating the electoral law. These included messages and photos attacking various political parties, election candidates and prime ministerial nominations.

In a related development, police found hacker attacks on the EC’s online vote-count reporting system known as Rapid Report.

The hacker attacks resulted in the system collapsing three times on Sunday, said Police Lt-General Surachet Hakparn, deputy director of the Taskforce for Information Technology Crime Suppression.

Surachet said the hackers had launched their attacks from inside and outside the country. “They are the same group of people,” he said but refused to identify them.

Also, he declined to specify whether the hackers were involved with any political group.

THE PHEU THAI Party has reportedly put together a coalition of six parties including Future Forward, Seri Ruam Thai, New Economics, Prachachart and Puea Chat to stake its claim to form a government with a total of over 250 seats in the Lower House.

Pheu Thai, which won the most number of seats in the election, yesterday claimed legitimacy to form the government, arguing the mandate was a rejection of premier Prayut Chan-o-cha continuing in office.

With 95 per cent of ballots counted, Pheu Thai has won 137 constituency seats against the 118 of the pro-junta Phalang Pracharat Party, which however secured the most number of votes.

“It should be deemed that Pheu Thai won the people’s mandate to run the country,” the party said in a statement yesterday.

“Combined with the seats of parties that have always been clear about opposing the junta, we have more than 250 MPs and our total votes are 6 million more than what the pro-junta camp has gained,” it said.

The party said the electorate had delivered a clear message that the majority of people did not want General Prayut, who staged a military coup in 2014, to continue as prime minister. The coup led by Prayut had led to the toppling of the Pheu Thai-led government under Yingluck Shinawatra.

“Hence, it is against the will of the majority for parties to support General Prayut,” the statement read. “The [Prayut] coalition subsequently will not be accepted, become unstable, and will not be able to solve economic and other issues.”

Meanwhile, the pro-junta Phalang Pracharat, which won the popular vote with 7.9 million, yesterday expressed confidence about forming a coalition, saying it had already had begun discussions on putting together a coalition with likeminded parties. It also insisted on reinstalling Prayut as premier to lead the post-election government.

“Since announcing that we’re ready to lead the coalition, we’re making good progress but we’re also waiting to see the official election results from the Election Commission,” said its secretary-general Sontirat Sontijirawong.

He said negotiations with other parties had been positive, but it was too soon to discuss Cabinet positions.

Questioned whether Phalang Pracharat had the legitimacy to lead the government, Sontirat said if it could get the most number of votes, then that was true legitimacy.

Sontirat also admitted the party had approached Bhumjaithai Party to join its coalition. But while it said Pheu Thai had offered Bhumjaithai the top job, Sontirat insisted Phalang Pracharat was determined to ensure the PM position goes only to Prayut.

Pheu Thai secretary-general Phumtham Wehcayachai also made it clear that the party supports Khunying Sudarat Keyuraphan to be its prime minister candidate and this is not a point of discussion to form a coalition.

With swing parties supporting one of the two camps hoping to successfully form the next government, the Democrat Party made clear its stance against joining the pro-Shinawatra camp.

Prayut ‘not involved’

Democrat deputy leader Korn Chatikavanich, whose party won 55 seats in Sunday’s general election according to unofficial results, on Monday posted on his Facebook page that he had not held discussions with any bloc about forming the next government.

“Now there are many rumours. Don’t pay attention to it. For me, it’s impossible to support Pheu Thai [to form the next government],” he posted.

His party’s decision about joining any camp would be clearer when its executives meet and come to a resolution on the matter, Korn added.

Meanwhile, Bhumjathai, the unofficial winner of 52 seats and seen as the most powerful swing party as it could join either the Shinawatra camp or the pro-junta camp led by the Phalang Pracharat Party, remained silent yesterday.

A source from the party denied that its leader, Anutin Charnvirakul, had met with Defence Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Prawit Wongsuwan at a military barracks to talk about forming a coalition government.

Prime Minister Prayut yesterday distanced himself from the ongoing struggle to form a coalition, saying it does not concern him as the current prime minister.

After the election, the junta chief said the focus had now been shifted to holding the coronation ceremony coming up in early May.

However, Prayut yesterday did mention “hopes and dreams” at least twice. Borrowing the idea from a book whose title he said he could not remember, Prayut said hopes and dreams are like a kite.

“You cannot just let them fly in the air. You need a good string to fly them or they’ll be gone,” Prayut added metaphorically without elaborating.

Prayut also announced yesterday that this Friday, he would be presenting the last of his TV monologues “The King’s Philosophy” where he mostly talked about the government achievements.

Army-aligned Phalang Pracharat won more than 7.6 million votes, about 400,000 votes ahead of Pheu Thai, the party linked to exiled former premier Thaksin Shinawatra.

But preliminary figures show Pheu Thai has won in 137 constituency seats nationwide, compared to Phalang Pracharat’s 97.

So who is actually leading, and what happens next?

– Who won the election? –

Both parties have claimed the right to lead Thailand’s next government, leaving voters confused.

Phalang Pracharat believes winning the popular vote gives them the mandate.

But Pheu Thai disputes this, saying they now hold more of the 350 available constituency seats in the 500-seat lower house.

This is where it gets tricky.

Both are now in negotiations with other smaller parties to cobble together a majority in the lower house.

But results for an additional 150 “party list” seats, which will take more of the popular vote into account, have yet to be released.

Loyalties up for grabs include Bhumjaithai, which won 39 constituency seats, and political newcomer Future Forward, led by telegenic frontman and fierce junta critic Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit.

All told, the victorious party need 376 seats of the 750-member combined upper and lower houses to pick a prime minister.

But the upper house or senate is a 250-member body appointed by the junta, virtually guaranteeing Phalang Pracharat success.

 – Was it ‘free and fair’? –

Billionaire Thaksin Shinawatra, who has been in self-exile since 2008, told AFP in an interview that the election was “definitely” rigged.

Pressure is mounting on the Election Commission to explain several allegations of irregularities, and the hashtag #RiggedElection has trended on Thai Twitter.

Poll monitor ANFREL says there were nearly 1.9 million invalidated ballots, or around 5.6 percent of the total, and the tabulation of votes was “deeply flawed”.

But it also said that shortcomings may not significantly have impacted the result.

“I have brought up many, many aspects of this election and repeatedly said it did not meet with certain standards,” said ANFREL secretary general Rohana Hettiarachchie, who pointed to the legal framework underpinning the poll such as the appointed senate.

But “I think it is unfair if we conclude whether it is free and fair or not.”

A candidate from the Democrat Party — which dropped to fifth in the popular vote — filed a complaint Monday about vote-buying in a southern province the night before the poll.

According to the commission’s own figures, the number of ballots cast in some provinces far exceeded the voter turnout — but was dismissed as “human error” when questioned by reporters.

By Tuesday more than 700,000 people had signed a petition to dissolve the Election Commission.

Pheu Thai’s prime minister candidate Sudarat Keyuraphan said her party was probing several irregularities in the polls.

  – How did Prayut’s party perform so well? –

Pheu Thai and other pro-democracy parties hoped to leverage discontent with a junta that has ruled Thailand for nearly five years after ousting the administration of Thaksin’s sister Yingluck in 2014.

But before the elections, junta-aligned Phalang Pracharat poached more than 40 MPs from the Pheu Thai party, many of them stalwarts in their constituencies.

These politicians are often seen as the solvers of local problems, and Thai voters — especially in more rural areas — are likely to remain loyal to their patron instead of any party ideology.

Under the wing of most politicians are also people known as “canvassers” working to persuade locals — either in cash or in kind.

Analysts say the impact canvassers have in elections is pivotal.

Phalang Pracharat may have also benefited from an election eve message from Thailand’s king, who urged voters to support “good people” and not those who create “chaos”.

The junta has portrayed itself as the defender of the monarchy.