A majority of people believe the ongoing process of selecting the prime minister in parliament will cause division in Thai society, according to two opinion surveys.
The first, by the National Institute of Development Administration, or Nida Poll, was conducted on July 11-12 by telephone interviews with 1,310 people aged 18 and over of various levels of education, occupations and incomes throughout the country.
Asked whether the parliamentary voting procedure would divide society, 37.10% said they strongly believed this would be the case, while 26.64% said the chance of this happening was moderate. On the other side, 20.15% did not think this would happen at all and 16.03% doubted this would happen. The rest, 0.08% had no answer or were not interested.
Asked for how long they thought the new government would last, 60.53% believed it would complete the four-year term; 15.34% said it would last about two years; 11.91% about one year; 6.95% less than six months; 3.28% about three years; and 1.99% had no answer or were not interested.
Suan Dusit Rajabhat University also carried out a survey online during July 20-22 on 1,809 people throughout the country to gauge their opinions on "conflicts in the selection of the prime minister".
With each respondent allowed to give more than one answer, 71.73% believed society would be further divided; 67.90% said the conflicts would cause people to feel tired of politics; and 62.23% said the conflicts would affect the economy and people's livelihoods.
Asked what they thought the causes of the conflicts were, 74.21% said political parties are overly obsessed with fighting for power and interests; 63.76% put the blame on senators; and 62.42% said some parties have no respect for the people's voice and do not concede defeat.
