General Conditions, Problems, and Obstacles of People's Political Awareness in Democracy Regime Affecting General Election

Abstract

The objectives of this research were to study general conditions, problems, and obstacles of people's political awareness in democratic regime affecting the general election, Methodology was the qualitative method, data were collected from 18 key informants by in-depth-interviewing and from 12 participants in a focus group discussion and analyzed data by descriptive interpretation. Findings were as follows:  General conditions, problems, and obstacles of people's political awareness in democratic regimes affecting general election were found 1) political socialization institutions, such as educational institutions organized democratic promotion activities for students to cultivate good attitude, knowledge, and understanding and political activities. Peer group was the group that encouraged and persuaded friends to go for election, 2) candidates; characteristics; candidates did not access to people in general, only some groups, new candidates lacked experiences in working, 3) election campaign; campaign by using canvassers or representatives, mobile vans with public address system or other devices such radio and billboards display, 4) political party policy; party policy presentation encouraged people to be politically aware and used their rights to vote, 5) political party that the candidates affiliated; political parties in Thailand should develop the candidates' qualifications, 6) Media influence; mass media are good learning units that have important roles in political news and information dispatch. Mass media encourage both old and new generations to be politically aware. Important problems of political awareness were the: lack of people training for political knowledge and understanding. The problems of the patronage system, kinship, and relatives resulted in pressure and interest groups. The election campaign still lacked full coverage of public relations, parties' policies cannot be implemented only for the election campaign. Lack of strong party leaders who dare to make decisions and unity with people, Online media cannot be accessed by all people, and media contents indicted political violence.