RESULTS : Samak vows investigation

RESULTS : Samak vows investigation

Published voting figures said suspiciously at variance with party's own predictions

Published on January 5, 2008

People Power Party (PPP) leader Samak Sundaravej yesterday said he would take measures to check the election results in Bangkok as they seriously contradicted the party's exit-poll results.

The exit poll carried out by the party showed that the PPP would win 21 seats and the Democrat Party 15, but the results, including the advance votes, showed the PPP to have won only nine seats and the Democrats 21.

He questioned the legitimacy of the advance election and asked why the Election Commission had allowed voters to walk in and vote without having to register, and he said the ballot boxes should have been kept at police stations.

"We want the investigation to find out which Bangkok constituencies ballot boxes kept in the wrong place belonged to and if that caused the changes in the election results,'' he said.

"Some ballot boxes showed we got no votes. How is that possible? We will have to look into this,'' he said.

Samak reiterated that he had announced the formation of the government because of the interference of a "dirty hand" in politics.

"Some one gave money to the police. It was not state money.

"They deployed over 700 police to mobilise witnesses from the provinces to Bangkok for the election. A policeman called me and told me this had happened in the provinces, so why do they want an investigation in Bangkok?'' Samak said.

Samak said he had asked the National Police Commission to transfer the high-ranking officers from the investigation.

The PPP leader said there had been a move to block

him from becoming PM using the libel case in which he had been found guilty, but he vowed to fight it to the highest court.

"They also threaten to bring me down with the fire-fighting-equipment corruption case. I challenge them to do so,'' he said.

Samak also questioned how political rivals of his party had known in advance it would get a massive amount of red or yellow cards.

"It is suspicious that they knew about this,'' he said.

"The latest move to destroy us is a petition to the court to nullify the election, which the court has agreed to hear. This is an attempt to paint the PPP as an evil that must be stopped,'' he said.

The Nation