The Election Commission of Thailand (ECT) has announced that the election will be held on 24 March 2019. The constitution says that the ECT must deliver the 95% of the election results within 150 days after the organic law on election came into force on 11 December 2018. To prevent legal complications, the ECT plans to announce the election results by 9 May 2019. It therefore claims that the possibility of overturning the election is very unlikely.

However, contemporary Thai political history of points out that overturning or postponing elections happens quite often. For instance, the Constitutional Court dissolved the elected People’s Power Party in 2008, paving the way for a government under the Democrats, who has lost the 2007 election. The mob obstructed the election in 2014. The coup followed, and promised an election that was postponed 6 times.

Today, the NCPO still has Article 44 at its disposal, meaning that it has absolute legal power to do anything, even though they are constrained by other factors. The organic law also contradicts the constitution as it says that 150-day timeframe applies to holding the election, not announcing the results. Unless the election result can be made official on 9 May 2019, the constitutional court may intervene to rule if the election is unconstitutional.

Prachatai summarizes pessimistic scenarios of what may happen in Thai politics between the election date and the formation of a new government.