Bangkok:  The kingdom needs an experienced leader, Thai Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha said on Monday as candidates started registering for next month's general election. Prayut Chan-O-Cha is up against a tough campaign to win a second term.

The former head of the army, who was installed in office through a coup in 2014, is up against a formidable opponent in Paetongtarn Shinawatra, the daughter of billionaire former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

In colourful scenes at a Bangkok sports hall, Prayut, 69, arrived on an open-top truck with potential MPs and supporters from his United Thai Nation party.

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Thailand "needs job-qualified individuals. They cannot do it if they have never done it, Prayut told Thairath TV.

On May 14, Thai voters will cast their ballots in the country's first election since significant youth-led pro-democracy protests shook the nation in 2020. In the polls, Prayut and his party are trailing Paetongtarn's Pheu Thai and Pita Limjaroenrat's pro-reform Move Forward Party.

The kingdom has had a difficult time recovering economically from the effects of COVID-19 under Prayut. According to the World Bank, Thailand is the only country in Southeast Asia whose GDP has not yet reached pre-pandemic levels, aside from coup-stricken Myanmar.

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Even though Thailand's opposition parties are doing well in the polls, the 2017 constitution, which was drafted by the junta, gives army-favored parties a significant advantage when it comes to forming a government.

A candidate for prime minister must be elected by a majority of the 250 military-appointed senators and the 500 elected lower-house MPs.
In order to avoid what happened in 2019 when it won the majority of seats but was excluded from government, Pheu Thai has stated that it is aiming for a landslip victory in the election.

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Even though neither she nor Prayut are running for an MP, Paetongtarn, who is eight months pregnant, came to support Pheu Thai candidates as they registered.

The prime minister is not required to be an elected legislator under the 2017 constitution. If successful, the 36-year-old would replace Prayut in the role of prime minister, just like her father and her aunt Yingluck, who Prayut ousted in a coup in 2014.