Sunday, December 23, 2007

Thai election results for 2007

As of late Sunday evening, the PPP Party -- formed by supporters of deposed PM Thaksin -- may have won 233 seats in the 480 seat parliament. The Democratic Party fared better than expected winning maybe 161 seats. But some smaller pro-military parties -- and potential coalition partners for the Democrats -- fared more poorly than expected.*

Bangkok Pundit (BP) -- who is live-blogging the results -- sees evidence here that military's show of support for a particular party might be toxic.** Noting that the Democrats did quite well, PB observes that another smaller party, Puea Paendin, which the military had backed, fared poorly. He suggests that if the military had more fervently backed the Democrats they would have done even worse:
If the military had really supported the Democrats I wonder what that would have done for their poll numbers. The military can control or limit the information that people receive, but they can't make people vote for their candidates. The elite should take notice.
All my jots concerning the 2007 election are gathered here. BP's blog has comprehensive coverage of the Thai election results. There is breaking analysis at New Mandala also.
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* The largest of the small parties, Chart Thai, has won maybe 40 seats, but had been expected to win about 60 seats.
** I have revised this paragraph since its initial posting, as I had misinterpreted BP (see comment).

2 comments:

  1. suspects the military administration goofed by not backing the Democratic Party more fervently:

    To clarify I think the opposite. Actually, the Dems did quite well, but the party, Puea Paendin, which the military backed did badly so if the military had more fervently backed the Dems I think they would have done even worse.

    ReplyDelete
  2. BP, I'm sorry for having misinterpreted. I have amended the post accordingly.

    ReplyDelete

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