"THE ELECTION COMMISSION was ready for the Bangkok MP by-election for Constituency 6 today, an election commissioner said yesterday. The voting will take place (Sunday) from 8am to 3pm today in Klong Sam Wa, Khan Na Yao, Nong Chok and Bueng Kum districts.

Election Commissioner Prapun Naigowit said the vote counting would be at election units before the votes were gathered at district offices.The district office at Klong Sam Wa would be the centre for the online vote-counting report.

Prapun said while security had been tightened in the areas, foreign election observers, including those from the United States and Canada, were welcome to observe the election so they could understand the poll in Thailand held in a State of Emergency."

http://www.nationmultimedia.com/home/2010/...y-30134502.html

I wonder if they will even let the Puey Thai red shirt candidate out of jail to vote.

"Pheu Thai Party has conceded defeat in the by-election of the Constituency 6 after seeing its candidate lost more than 10,000 votes when votes counting nearly finished.

At 6.15pm, Pheu Thai Party's Kokaew Pikulthong, detained in prison on terrorism charge, got 79,776 while Democrat party's candidate Panich Vikitsetr got 92,041 as the counting reached 96 per cent.

Wicharn Meenachaiyanun, a Pheu Thai MP of the Constituency 6, announced the accepting of the defeat on stage. Accompanying him was Jatuporn Prompan, also Pheu Thai MP, who was charged of terrorism charge for leading red shirts protests at Rajprasong area. He was not arrested because he has parliamentary immunity. After the immunity ended, he surrendered to police and was freed on bail.

Kokaew has been arrested on the same charge and Pheu Thai Party decided to field him as candidate for the July 25 by-election."

http://www.nationmultimedia.com/home/2010/...t-30134522.html

Click to view attachment


Very low voter turnout less than 50% due probably to the long Buddhist holiday, which is probably why the junta's EC scheduled the election this way, figuring many of the red shirts from Issan would go home for the holiday and not vote. Just imagine what the result would have been in a place like Udon or Khon Kaen where the democrats would have been lucky to get 20% of the vote.

Just remember: 81,000 people just voted for a candidate that the government has been screaming is a terrorist for over two months ! Considering the facts that the Pheu Thai candidate could not campaign from jail where he is held on trumped-up terrorism charges and that some of the government controlled Thai TV and radio stations waged a relentless attack against him for a month, it's amazing that he could have received 43% of the vote in Bangkok over a long five-day holiday weekend when the Issan people were likely to have gone home. As the poster above notes, this wuold have been a 75-25 landslide in Pheu Thai's favor anywhere in the north or north-east. That's why Abhisit won't call a general election.

I agree 100%. That fact that 43% of voters in the capital of Bangkok picked a red shirt candidate who is in jail because the government says he is a terrorist shows that huge numbers of people don't believe all the propaganda on Tv and radio. The margin of victory also shows that had the PAD candidate stayed in the race, the Pheu Thai would have almost certainly have won. That's a real warning to Abhisit. He has got to keep PAD happy and out of elections or he can forget about winning many elections anywhere.That's why nothing the man says can be believed. Watch what he does, not says.