Results

  • World News

    UPDATE: No clear winner in US Election, but pollsters got the result very wrong, again

    Although there’s currently no clear winner, officially reaching the magic 270 Electoral College votes and claiming the US Presidency, there’s already plenty of losers – most with the words “poll’ in their name. US pollsters, largely, got the election result wrong, again. They’d promised to refine their models following the 2016 embarrassment but have just repeated their errors this time…

  • Covid-19 News

    Survey says… most Thais prefer to keep foreign tourists out, for now

    “The local respondents showed little interest in visiting the more popular foreign tourist magnets of Pattaya and Phuket.” A recent Suan Dusit Poll asked Thais whether they wanted foreign tourists visiting Thailand soon. 75.7% said “no”. 54.4% said they would prefer the Thai people to tour their own country first before heading overseas. 21.3% say they are afraid foreign visitors…

  • Covid-19 News

    25 Covid-19 cases awaiting test results in Phuket, 5 cases confirmed yesterday

    At a tetchy meeting of the Provincial Communicable Diseases Committee in Phuket Town yesterday, Phuket’s Govenor Phakaphong Tavipatana finally admitted to five cases of Covid-19 on the holiday island, three of them still active. After weeks of obfuscation and denying active cases of the coronavirus in Phuket, the Governor finally came clean after repeated questions from a frustrated Phuket press…

  • Politics News

    Bad report card for PM Prayut after 6 months in office

    Thai PM Prayut Chan-o-cha has scored poorly in an opinion poll by the National Institute for Development Administration, or NIDA, after his first six months in office. The poll ran from November 29-December 3 and included 1,278 adults from across Thailand with varying occupations and education levels. The purpose of the survey was to gauge satisfaction with the Thai PM’s…

  • Thailand Election News

    And then there was three – a new bloc emerges from the political number-crunching

    PHOTO: The latest political weapon – an adding machine A third possible bloc is emerging as the phones run hot with major parties trying to persuade the smaller parties and solo MPs to side with them. The magic number is 251 seats to form a workable majority coalition. Any fewer than 250 will mean they risk being defeated on any…

  • Thailand Election News

    Election Commission’s ‘formula’ lands 27 parties in Lower House

    The Election Commission has announced that a total of 26 parties have secured party-list MP seats in the new Lower House. 11 of the parties didn’t even win enough votes to be entitled to the seats under the guidelines announced before the election. The EC deputy secretary-general Sawang Boonmee refused to explain why the junta-appointed poll authority had chosen this controversial…

  • Thailand Election News

    The Election Commission awards 27 parties with seats in the new parliament

    PHOTO: The Thai PM warms up for the next round of musical chairs in the new Parliament “Someone has moved the goal posts and changed the soccer ball to a golf ball.” The new Thai parliament has now officially become unworkable, and that’s before anyone even sits down to take a vote. Today the Election Commission awarded 26 political parties…

  • Thailand Election News

    Court says party-list seat calculation is constitutional

    FILE PHOTO In news unlikely to shock anyone, the Constitutional Court has ruled unanimously that Article 128 of the MP Election Act, regarding the calculation of the 150 party-list seat allocation, is constitutional. They’ve ruled that it does not conflict with Article 91 of the Constitution. The Charter Court’s ruling has been released in a statement which was timed to perfection before the Election Commission was set…

  • Thailand Election News

    Announcement of election results this Tuesday and Wednesday

    The Election Commission is, as promised, poised to announce the final election results next Tuesday and Wednesday. Tuesday’s initial round of results are sure to spark off a new round of political dramas – no matter who is considered the ‘winner’ from the results. The announcements come at a time when tensions are running high over lawsuits and the uncertainty over…

  • Thailand Election News

    Pro-democracy coalition remains positive following weekend glitch

    by Kai Chanwanpen The see-saw continues as the anti and pro-junta groups continue to tussle to form a coalition government. Meanwhile the Election Commission (EC) is no closer to announcing the allocation of Lower House seats… three weeks after the vote! They maintain that May 9 is the day they will announce the results although this deadline has been muddied…

  • Thailand Election News

    Poll shows Thais are wary about the new government’s potential to end conflict

    A new Suan Dusit Poll shows 31.8% of the respondents believe that the political situation will worsen due to the lack of stability of the new government while 28.1% are more optimistic. Most Thais believe the new government, be it led by Palang Pracharat or Pheu Thai, will not be able to end political division that have lasted almost two decades. The opinion poll sampled 1,752 people across the country. Nearly half said that…

  • Thailand Election News

    Democrat’s 50 parliamentary seats up for grabs

    The Democrat Party is hedging their bets at the moment with differing views among the remnant of the political party as to where they should throw their support in the new parliament. Yesterday they were juggling their options, as both Pheu Thai and Phalang Pracharat claimed legitimacy to form the next government. Senior Democrat politician Thaworn Senneam, who won the…

  • Thailand Election News

    Election results: Phalang Pracharat wins popular vote, Pheu Thai wins most seats

    The Election Commission, acting on increased pressure from a number of political and NGO complaints, has released the general election popular vote count, saying the pro-junta Phalang Pracharat won the most popular votes at over 8.4 million, while Pheu Thai came second with 7.9 million votes. This afternoon’s media conference came as a surprise as the EC had been dodging…

  • Thailand Election News

    “Palang Pracharat will not rush to form government”

    PHOTO: Palang Pracharat party leader Dr. Uttama Savanayana “He also called on the Pheu Thai-led alliance to stop calling themselves the “pro-democracy camp” and their rival parties “pro-dictatorship”, pointing out that both camps had been elected by the people.” The Palang Pracharat party leader Uttama Savanayana says there is no need for the party to rush to form a government because the official election results have yet to be…

  • Thailand Election News

    Deputy PM Wissanu Krea-ngam disses Pheu Thai ‘coalition’

    “The final seat tally is subject to change since the commission has only announced 95 per cent of the voting results.” Deputy PM Wissanu Krea-ngam has called Wednesday’s announcement of a Pheu Thai-led coalition preparing to form a government merely psychological strategy that will not bear fruit. “The truth will be known after May 9 when the Election Commission endorses…

  • Thailand Election News

    Six parties poised to announce coalition government at 10am

    Six pro-democracy parties, led by Pheu Thai, are announcing their intention to form a coalition government this morning. The number-crunchers say, even without the support of BumJaiThai and the Democrats, they have 252 house seats to form a majority government (they need at least 251 seats in the 500 seat parliament). The parties siding with Pheu Thai to form the…

  • Thailand Election News

    Pheu Thai now claims to have the numbers to form a coalition. So does Palang Pracharat.

    Pheu Thai Party, which at this stage has emerged as the winner of the most lower house seats after the general election, says they’ve gathered enough support from political allies to form a coalition government. The party’s secretary general Phumtham Vechayachai made the claim at a meeting this morning. He said Pheu Thai and other parties now command enough MPs…

  • Thailand Election News

    Parties race to cobble together a working coalition

    Day Two following the election and the only thing that is clear is that nothing is clear at this stage. Pheu Thai and Phalang Pracharat are both claiming the right to form a government with support of like-minded parties. The two rival parties, the pro-democracy Pheu Thai and the pro-Junta Phalang Pracharat, are locked in a close battle to form…

  • Thailand Election News

    Thai poll results, for newbies

    PHOTO: France 24 The numbers are still being counted but the trends are now quite defined so that any changes are unlikely to affect the final result. According to popular vote figures from the Election Commission, with 93% of the total votes counted, Palang Pracharat garnered the most votes with 7.5 million, with Pheu Thai following at 7.3 million. But…

  • Thailand Election News

    UPDATE: Election results – what it all means

    The Election Commission says the official results of the Thai general election will be announced today. By the close of counting last night around 92% of the votes had been counted. The bleary-eyed commission decided to delay the announcement until this afternoon. The EC chairman says the announcement of winners in each constituency had to be deferred because expat’ votes…