A new general election would likely be held on July 20 or July 27 and a new government set up by October, according to election commissioner Somchai Srisuthiyakorn's own "Thailand election timeline" posted on Wednesday on his Facebook page.
Mr Somchai, who is in charge of election management, wrote his election timeline as follows:
- April 22: The Election Commission would hold a meeting with 70 political parties to discuss when the new election should be held.
- April 23-24: The EC might endorse more senators, but the number of those endorsed would not yet reach the 95% total required to reconvene the upper house.
- April 29: The EC might endorse the remaining winners and the number of the endorsed senators would probably reach 95%.
- April 29-30: There might be a meeting between the government and the EC about a royal decree on the new House election. The government would likely chose to hold it in 90 days. Therefore, the election day might be either on July 20 or July 27, both Sundays.
Mr Somchai said in his Facebook message that there should be no reason for the new House election to be nullified because the EC would use many different methods for the registration of candidates. However, he was not certain the EC would be able to endorse up to 95% of the total winners within 30 days of the election.
"If the situation is not too bad, the parliament should be opened in September and we should get a new government in October," he wrote.