PHEU THAI WINS SLIM MAJORITY OF 264 SEATS

BANGKOK, July 4 (Bernama) -- The opposition Pheu Thai won the Thai 26th General Election with a slim majoirity of 264 seats of the total 500 parliamentary seats and not a landslide victory as predicted by exit polls earlier in the day.

According to the Election Commission unofficial results, the former ruling party, Democrat, only managed to get 160 seats.

Pheu Thai gained additional 78 seats while Democrat lost 12 seats compared to the seat tally before the dissolution of Parliament.

This time, Bhumjaithai clinched 34 seats, Chart Thai Pattana 19 seats while small parties Palong Chan and Chart Pattana Puea Pandin seven seats each.

Rak Thailand won four seats, Matubhum two seats and Mahachon, New Democrat and Rak Santi, one seat each.

The unofficial voter turn-out is 65.99 per cent with 30,987,801 voters casting their votes out of the total 47.3 million eligible voters.

The EC has until Aug 2 to confirm the results.

Immediately after polling closed at 3pm, three local universities predicted that Pheu Thai would have a landslide victory in the range of 300 seats based on the surveys they carried out on voters at polling stations nationwide.
-- BERNAMA