Thailand’s once dynamic economy has ground to a halt as political instability and the lack of structural changes worry foreign investors. Voters, meanwhile, had voiced concerns about rising costs.

“I want the economy to improve and I don’t want big factories to relocate to our neighbouring countries,” civil servant Phananya Bunthong told the BBC, a reference to Thailand falling behind Vietnam.

The People’s Party promised big changes, from curbing the power of the biggest businesses and military, to streamlining the extensive bureaucracy and modernising the education system.

But in Thailand, even a straight election victory may not have been enough, as powerful, unelected forces have repeatedly intervened to block parties challenging the status quo.

Two previous incarnations of the People’s Party were dissolved by the court, and their leaders banned from politics. When the young reformers won last time, the military-appointed senate barred them from forming a government and the constitutional court dissolved the party.

They are not the only ones to have been subjected to intervention by the constitutional court, and other unelected conservative institutions. Five Pheu Thai prime ministers have been dismissed by the court since 2008, and two earlier incarnations of the party have been dissolved.

But if the People’s Party had exceeded the 151 seats it won in 2023, it may have proven difficult to bar it from forming a government. This is despite the great unease about its radical agenda in conservative and royalist circles.

The projected result means the People’s Party’s opponents will not be in this position, for now.

Besides the election, Thais have voted in a referendum on whether to reform the 2017 constitution, which was drafted under military rule in 2017.

Critics of the charter believe it gives too much power to unelected forces like the senate, “handcuffing” the country’s democracy.

With over 90% of votes counted, preliminary tallies suggested around 65% had voted in favour.

“I want change. I don’t want things to be the same,” 28-year-old Kittitat Daengkongkho told the BBC.

That, in effect, was the choice Thai voters were presented with in this election: sweeping change, or more of the same.