Thai Election Commission to Hold New Voting for Blocked Polling Stations

 

EC commissioner Somchai Srisuthiyakorn said Friday that new voting would be held in seven provinces, including Rayong, Yala, Narathiwat, Pattani, Satun, Phetchaburi, and Prachuap, where polling stations were blocked by protesters on Feb. 2.

 

BANGKOK – Thai Election Commission (EC) Friday decided to hold a new round of voting for 10,284 polling stations that were blocked by protesters in Feb. 2 general election.

EC commissioner Somchai Srisuthiyakorn said Friday that new voting would be held in seven provinces, including Rayong, Yala, Narathiwat, Pattani, Satun, Phetchaburi, and Prachuap, where polling stations were blocked by protesters on Feb. 2. However, the specific time for the new round of voting is yet to be announced.

Meanwhile, voting would not be held again at the polling stations where voting had taken place and were later disrupted by protesters, Somchai said, adding that the EC would count the ballots that were successfully cast.

The EC also asked the caretaker government to issue a new royal decree to set a new election date for the 28 constituencies in eight provinces where there were no registered candidates due to obstruction by protesters.

The latest figures by the EC showed that 46.79 percent of voters nationwide cast their ballots in Feb. 2 general election.

The polling agency said as many as 20.1 million voters out of 43.024 million eligible Thai voters exercised their voting rights in 68 provinces where voting was not disrupted by protesters, with 71.38 percent of those ballots valid, 12.05 percent invalid and 16. 57 percent “no-vote.”

The National Institute of Development Administration on Friday released results of a survey conducted on 1,259 Thai residents nationwide on Feb. 5-6.

Accordingly, as many as 59.25 percent of polled Thai residents wanted to have the Feb. 2 general election nullified, 55.76 percent said caretaker prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra should resign, while some 20.41 percent of them said the Feb. 2 election is legal under the Constitution.