From Bloomberg.
Thai exit polls forecast a majority for the party allied to ex-premier Thaksin Shinawatra in today’s election, a result that may test the army’s willingness to let it govern five years after his ouster in a coup.
The Thaksin-backed Pheu Thai will win 313 seats in the 500- member Parliament, with Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva’s Democrat party winning 152 seats and smaller parties taking 35 seats, according to a Suan Dusit Rajabhat University exit poll. The poll, which surveyed 157,759 people nationwide, correctly predicted pro-Thaksin victories in the elections in 2005 and 2007. It did not provide a margin of error.
“I hope that we will accept the decision by the majority of Thais in this election,” Thaksin told Thai PBS television station by phone from Dubai, where he has lived since fleeing a jail sentence in 2008. “If you don’t respect the decision of most people, the country can’t have peace.”
The prospect of a Pheu Thai victory has heightened concerns of post-election violence that has led investors to sell Thai stocks and the currency over the past month. If the exit polls hold up, the wide margin of victory may deter the ruling elite from again overturning an election result, said Chris Baker, a Bangkok-based historian who co-wrote a biography of Thaksin.
“If the result does stand with this stunning a victory, then it shows just how many people resent what has been done to the politics of the country over the last five years,” Baker said. “This certainly puts him in a very strong position.”
An exit poll by the Bangkok-based ABAC Poll Research Center forecast Pheu Thai would win 299 seats and the Democrats 132 seats.