Voters pick PPP

Voters pick PPP

(BangkokPost.com)

The Palang Prachachon (People Power) party loyal to Thaksin Shinawatra won Sunday's election, but appeared to fall just short of a clear parliamentary majority. Still: "I will be the next premier for sure," said PPP leader Samak Sundaravej.

"The coup is dead," Samak told a press conference after unofficial results showed his party had won at least 230 of the 480 contested seats at Sunday's polls.

Samak, 72, is likely to become Thailand's 25th prime minister. "Now the people have had their say. The numbers that came out are an answer to those people," meaning the military.

With 92 per cent of the votes counted near midnight, PPP had 228 seats and the Democrats had 166. In all, 241 seats are needed fora majority.

The midnight results had Chart Thai party with 39 seats, while Puea Pandin party got 26 seats, Ruam Jai Thai Chart Pattana won 10 seats, Matchimathipataya had 7 seats and Pracharaj had four.

Two independent polls showed the People Power Party ahead by a wide margin in a strong repudiation of the generals, who had worked hard to discredit former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and to neutralise his supporters.

"I voted for Thaksin's party," said Siriporn Buntam, the owner of a small restaurant in the rice-growing province of Lopburi, west of Bangkok. Thaksin was the only politician who cared about the poor, she said. "Only when he was prime minister did we really get attention."

Sanit Chutipattana, 58, a salesman in Yala, in the Democrat Party's stronghold in southern Thailand, said he, too, was supporting Thaksin.

"I want Thaksin back," he said. "Thaksin is smarter, better in economics. In the past I had voted for Democrats but this time I changed my mind. It's time to change."

(Compiled by BangkokPost.com)

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Earlier report:

The PPP has taken 220 of the 400 seats in constituency voting, and has won 35 of the 80 party-list seats.

If those results are confirmed in official vote-counting Sunday night and Monday, the People Power party would easily capture more than the 241 seats needed to form a government itself - with no need of a coalition.

Observers cautioned there are several roadblocks ahead, even after final vote-counting is confirmed. For one thing, there are dozens of challenges alleging vote fraud, many against PPP candidates.

It must be stressed the results are unofficial, and based on a combination of exit polls and early vote results trickling in as reported by news media at polling stations.

Although Bangkok media agreed that early counting gave the PPP an outright majority, pollsters who conducted exit polls after the Sunday voting showed slight but important differences.

A Dusit Poll for Bangkok's Suan Dusit Rajabhat University forecast that PPP had won a majority of 256 seats, compared to 162 for the rival Democrat Party. However, Abac Poll of Assumption University said its survey showed PPP had won 202 seats, falling short of an outright majority, with the Democrats taking 146.

An Election Commission official told the Associated Press that with 40 per cent of the vote counted, the pro-Thaksin PPP has won 229 seats. The EC vote is official, but the agency has not actually released any final results.

Here are the BangkokPost.com figures as of 6.30pm (1130 GMT).

The constituency candidacy (total 400 seats) throughout Thailand.

People Power party: 220 seats

Democrat: 162 seats

Chart Thai: 40 seats

Puea Pandin: 30 seats

Ruamjaithai Chartpattana: 13 seats

Matchimathipataya: 10 seats

Pracharaj: 5 seats

Unofficial results of the party-list candidacy (total 80 seats)

People Power party: 34 seats

Democrat: 33 seats

Chart Thai: 4 seats

Puea Pandin: 7 seats

Ruamjaithai Chartpattana: 1 seat