Thai Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha, dissolved parliament on Monday, a decision that clears the way for parliamentary elections in May.

The elections, the second since the 2014 coup, must be held between 45 and 60 days after the dissolution of the institutionaccording to the Thai press probably on May 7 or 14.

The election pits the unpopular Prayut, who came to power in a military coup, against the daughter of tycoon and former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, the army’s nemesis who remains politically active despite spending more than a decade in exile .

It’s been a few weeks since it started unofficially into the election campaign Thailand.

The body responsible for supervising the elections (EC) will announce the official date in the coming days.

Prayut, 68, who took the helm of the country in controversial elections in 2019, has remained in power for a relatively long time for a country with numerous coups in its history (a dozen since the end of absolute monarchy in 1932).

Two months before the elections, Prayut, weighed down by a poor economic balance, is running against the main opposition party, Thai, which received nearly half of the voting intentions according to a poll published on Sunday (compared to 12% for the Prayut party).

His boss, Paetongtarn Shinawatra, 36, is the new face of the billionaire family whose opposition to the military has structured the country’s political life for more than 20 years. His father Thaksin was prime minister between 2001 and 2006 before being impeached. His aunt Yingluck led the government from 2011 to 2014, until the coup in Prayut.

“I am hopeful that I will form a government,” he told reporters on Friday. “We are campaigning for a landslide victory because a landslide victory will make us strong enough to form a government,” he added.

The 2017 constitution, written by the military junta, forces Pheu Thai, who is seeking 310 of the 500 seats in the lower house, to achieve a comfortable majority to govern, which will be difficult for observers.