Thailand to hold repolling for blocked centres

Thailand's Election Commission (EC) Friday decided to hold a new round of voting for the Jan 26 advance voting and for 10,284 polling stations that were blocked by protestors in the Feb 2 general election.

EC Commissioner Somchai Srisuthiyakorn Friday said new voting would be held in seven provinces -- Rayong, Yala, Narathiwat, Pattani, Satun, Phetchaburi, and Prachuap -- where polling stations were blocked by protestors on Feb 2, Xinhua reported.

However, the schedule for the new round of voting is yet to be announced.

Meanwhile, voting could not be held again at the polling stations where voting had taken place and were later disrupted by protestors, 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 protestors.

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

The polling agency said that as many as 20.1 million voters out of over 43 million eligible Thai voters exercised their voting rights in 68 provinces where voting was not disrupted by protestors, with 71.38 percent of those ballots valid, 12.05 percent invalid and 16.57 percent "no-vote."

The National Institute of Development Administration Friday released results of a survey of 1,259 Thai residents conducted 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 elections are legal under the constitution.