BANGKOK: Thais voted yesterday in a general election that Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra called three years early to counter a protracted street campaign by anti-corruption protesters to kick him out.

But the election looked likely to produce only a constitutional mess due to an opposition boycott that guaranteed empty seats in the 500-member parliament, which must be filled for a new government to be formed.

In one Bangkok seat, there was no candidate on the ballot the unopposed member of Thaksin's Thai Rak Thai (TRT) (Thais Love Thais) party having been disqualified at the last minute.

In the largely Muslim far south, where telecoms billionaire Thaksin is deeply unpopular, many unopposed TRT hopefuls were likely to fall short of the 20 per cent threshold of eligible votes that unrivalled candidates need for victory.

One such TRT candidate in the Malay-speaking region of the predominantly Buddhist nation even declined to put his last name or picture on campaign posters that made no mention of the party. Bombs wounded four security men after the polls closed in the region, where more than 1,100 people have been killed in two years of separatist violence.

Voters opposed to Thaksin, who turned the poll into an effective referendum by promising to step down if the TRT got less than 50 per cent of the vote, had only one choice to mark the abstention box on the ballot paper.

How many did so may prove the most important factor in an election Thaksin, who has solid support in the countryside, called to prove he had majority support against Bangkok "mobs" accusing him of corruption, cronyism and abuse of power.

"The poll will produce a protracted deadlock for months. The final outcome is far from certain," said political scientist Somjai Phagaphasvivat.

Preliminary results were expected to trickle in throughout the night, with a final tally out by early today.

They were expected to show a huge win for Thaksin as rural Thais 70 per cent of the country's 63 million people turned out in force to vote for a prime minister who has given them cheap healthcare and credit during his five years in office.

After saying on Saturday that both sides should "shake hands after the competition ends," Thaksin hinted his patience might not last if the street campaign leaders failed to acknowledge the results of the poll, which is open to 45 million Thais.

Source: China Daily