There's an interesting article on elections in SE Asia that's well worth reading in full. Here's the relevant extract about elections in Thailand
Quote Originally Posted by Perceptions of Electoral Integrity
Elections remain deeply controversial in Thailand. Despite the proliferation of party bans, institutional engineering, and the politicization of courts, popular sentiment seems strongly in favor of electoral democracy, as election results and turnout since 2001 have shown. Yet, there is a non-negligible and politically powerful minority that rejects elections outright. This coalition argues that politicians are corrupt, and voters easily bought and too ignorant to be able to distinguish between good and bad politicians. While making reference to the concept of electoral integrity, this discourse seems not to match well with the evidence collected through the PEI expertsтАЩ evaluations. The results of the PEI survey suggest that elections in Thailand are by and large well-administered in the technical aspects. Election fraud, vote buying or other forms of manipulation seem to be less problematic and on par with other countries in the region. The PEI experts identified the opposition movementтАЩs intimidation campaign, and the electoral authoritiesтАЩ fainthearted enforcement of the law (electoral authorities тАУ Thailand: 47, global mean: 69), as the main problems.