With 94% of votes counted, the Bhumjaithai party led the pack with a projected 192 seats from the 500-seats in parliament, according to the Thai Election Commission’s website.

Vote counting was underway in Thailand's early general election on Sunday, seen as a three-way race among competing visions of progressive, populist and old-fashioned patronage politics.

Thailand's political scene is shifting as the conservative Bhumjaithai Party wins a decisive election victory.

Bhumjaithai's rise on surging nationalism unleashed by the Thai-Cambodia conflict - alongside the decline of Pheu Thai after its travails last year - has triggered a rash of defections and reshaped political battlegrounds, including vote-rich agrarian belts.

Thailand is one of a number of Asian nations dealing with population whiplash. It's gone from explosive growth to a plummeting birthrate and an increasingly aged society. In 2022, an estimated 14 percent of Thailand's population was at least 65 years old.

PREAH VIHEAR, Cambodia, Feb 13 (Reuters) - Six weeks after a ceasefire ended fighting at the Thai-Cambodian border, thousands of displaced Cambodians still hope to return home, despite an election victory in Thailand by nationalists who want to wall off the disputed frontier.

Mainland Southeast Asia’s strategic equilibrium ultimately rests on the mutually reinforcing foreign policy approaches of Hanoi and Bangkok.