Thailand is a sinking ship....

Prediction 1 is fulfilled... Samak (aka Pig Man) has won the election. No surprises there. Reading the news this morning I felt sad reading quotes from people from the north-east who voted in "Taksin's Party" (although Samak denies any ties to Taksin!). They say that Taksin is the only politician to ever care about them so they want him back. They came to this conclusion because Taksin gave them cash handouts to help relieve their poverty. In truth, and dare I say it - any educated person can see it for what it is - Taksin is a political genius because he knows that if he has the Isaan NE voting loyalty he will win every election, so do what it takes to make them happy. Just look at the figures for eligible voters and the extremely uneven population distribution.

Area	Eligible Voters
North-East	15,523,494
North	8,470,916
Central	11,473,809
Bangkok	4,194,356
South	5,986,434

So, out of 15 and a half million voters in the NE, 9,274,002 voted for PPP Samak/Taksin party. It does not take a genius to see that if you don't have the vote here, you are stuffed. In every previous election the Democrats have struggled to get votes. This election, they won by a landslide in the south and in Bangkok (which is momentous in itself) and almost secured the vote in Central Thailand. No surprises that the north and north-east, Taksin's hometown and purchased voting regions, they lost big time.

This is the overall national vote ->

Political Parties	Constituency MPs			Proportionate MPs
	Votes	Seats	%	Votes	Seats	%
PPP	23,963,182	190	47.50	13,166,335	34	42.50
Democrat Party	20,931,865	133	33.25	12,765,281	32	40.00

And then we have the regions ->

Bangkok

Parties	Votes
Democrat Party	116,148
Democrat Party	110,689
Democrat Party	108,497
People Power Party	60,737
People Power Party	58,053

Central ->

Parties	Votes	Seats
People Power Party	5,656,131	39 (39.8%)
Democrat Party	5,655,355	35 (35.7%)

South

Parties	Votes	Seats
Democrat Party	6,827,700	49 (87.5%)
People Power Party	1,033,506	2 (3.6%)

North

Parties	Votes	Seats
People Power Party	5,019,000	44 (58.7%)
Democrat Party	3,141,652	16 (21.3%)

Northeast

Parties	Votes	Seats
People Power Party	9,274,002	96 (71.1%)
Pua Paendin	3,868,310	13 (9.6%)
Ruam Jai Thai Chat Pattana Party	1,786,838	7 (5.2%)
Democrat Party	1,715,132	6 (4.4%)

Figures from The Nation

People are commenting that Samak may not actually become Prime Minister due to the 300 electoral fraud complaints that need investigating in the next 30 days. The Electoral Commission is expected to hand out red cards that disqualify parties for electoral fraud. And who knows if the king will get involved and refuse to sign in the new PM. It sure is going to be an interesting month in Thailand.