Polls for new parliament open in Thailand

Voting for a new term of House of Representatives started Sunday morning in Thailand.

Polling began at 8:00 a.m. (0100 GMT) and will end at 3:00 p.m. (0800 GMT).

Thai voters are casting their ballots at 86,905 polling stations in 400 constituencies of the country. About 45.2 million people are eligible to vote in the kingdom.

Some 100 out of the more than 550 eligible voters at a polling station in western Bangkok have cast their votes within one hour after the opening of the polling. Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra is expected to cast vote at the station.

Some 18 political parties have put up 941 candidates to contest in the polls. But some one third of them have been barred from running due to disqualification.

The ruling Thai Rak Thai party headed by caretaker Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra is widely believed to pocket most of the seats of the 500-member House of Representatives this time.

The Thai Rak Thai party won 248 seats in the 2001 election and 377 in 2005,

Simmering criticism of Thaksin ruling broke out in late January following his family selling of its controlling stake in telecom giant Shin Corp. to a Singapore state-owned investment company for 1.9 billion U.S. dollars.

Thaksin dissolved parliament in February and called snap elections on April 2 in hopes of renewing his mandate and defuse the street protests demanding his resignation over accusations of corruption and abuse of power.

Despite the boycott by three major opposition parties, 56-year- old Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra was determined to push forward the polls which he styled as a referendum on his rule.

Marred by the alleged fraud and illegitimacy by the opposition, the poll is considered as high controversial and may trigger greater chaos in a country already plagued by street protest and confrontation over the past two months.

As the third general election held under the kingdom's 1997 Constitution, the election officials hoped the turn out would be no less than last year's 72 percent.

Source: Xinhua