UPDATE1: Pro-Thaksin party wins majority in Thailand's parliament+

BANGKOK, July 3 Kyodo -
(EDS UPDATING WITH PRELIMINARY VOTE COUNT, ABHISIT ADMITTING DEFEAT)
Thailand's opposition Pheu Thai Party, which supports deposed Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, won a parliamentary majority in Sunday's general election, according to the preliminary vote count with 82 percent of ballots counted.
Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva of the Democrat Party admitted defeat and congratulated his rival party, saying Thailand will now get its first female prime minister in the form of Thaksin's younger sister, Yinluck Shinawatra, Pheu Thai's declared candidate for the top position.
The preliminary count shows the opposition party has secured 255 seats in the 500-seat parliament, with the Democrats getting 164, far less than the 200-250 seats that Abhisit earlier said he hoped for.
In Thailand's two-tier system of voting, 375 legislators are elected by constituency, while 125 candidates are chosen from lists according to the proportion of votes each party receives nationwide on a separate ballot.
Earlier, after three major exit polls suggested a Pheu Thai Party winning a comfortable majority, supporters at the party's headquarters in Bangkok shouted ''Prime Minister Yingluck!''
Yingluck, 44, told reporters that she was grateful for all the votes cast for her party and that her brother, who has been living in self-exile abroad since 2008 to avoid being jailed on a corruption conviction, had congratulated her.
Giving two separate interviews by phone from Dubai to local television news programs, Thaksin said he was thrilled to see high voter turnout with enthusiastic voters from rural areas making every effort to return to their hometowns to cast ballots.
''Thais are showing their support for Thailand's flourishing democracy. I see them as trying to strive for reconciliation in the country, wanting to live in peace and putting an end to the conflicts,'' Thaksin told the Thai Public Broadcasting Service.
He also showed strong support for Yingluck to take the administrative leadership and said her first and foremost duty is to achieve reconciliation.
''Without reconciliation, we would move to nowhere,'' he said.
Thaksin, who was elected twice as prime minister in 2001 and 2005 before being ousted in a bloodless military coup in 2006, suggested his sister form a coalition government with smaller political parties, but he declined to say which ones.
Asked if he would be returning to Thailand later this year, Thaksin said, ''I don't want to go back while problems still remain. I don't have to go home. I still have much work to do (outside of Thailand).''
''I will go home if I am part of a solution for reconciliation,'' added the 61-year-old ex-leader, who is also wanted by Thai authorities on charges related to terrorism and inciting unrest.
Amid claims by the Democrats that Pheu Thai is mainly focused on getting an amnesty for Thaksin, Yingluck has insisted that her brother's fate is not the party's top priority and that she intends to resolve the country's problems.
She has also pledged not to conduct political revenge on behalf of her brother, saying she will instead promote reconciliation in the country.
Political unrest in Thailand has been continuing for years, starting with protests against Thaksin's government, followed by the 2006 coup and then mass protests by Thaksin supporters since Abhisit's government came to power in late 2008.
The election was Thailand's first since last year's violent protests and clashes that paralyzed Bangkok and left around 90 people dead.
==Kyodo
2011-07-03 21:59:05