Thailand legislative election, April 2006

Thai general election, April 2006

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2 April 2006

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All 500 seats to the House of Representatives of Thailand

	First party	Second party

Leader	Thaksin Shinawatra	No Vote
Party	Thai Rak Thai	Nonpartisan
Last election	375 seats, 60.7%	—
Seats won	460 Results annulled	0 (Election boycott of Opposition parties)
Seat change	85	—
Popular vote	15,387,223 (Constituency) 16,246,368 (Proportional)	9,207,230 (Constituency) 8,399,144 (Proportional)
Percentage	61.1% (Election returns nullified)	37.9% (Election returns nullified)

Prime Minister before election

Thaksin Shinawatra
Thai Rak Thai

Prime Minister-designate

Thaksin Shinawatra
Thai Rak Thai

General elections were held in Thailand on April 2006. Elections for the lower house of the Thai National Assembly, the House of Representatives, were held on 2 April 2006 and elections for the upper house, the Senate, were held on 19 April 2006. The Constitutional Court later invalidated the House of Representatives election results and ordered a new round of voting.

The ruling Thais Love Thais (TRT) party of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra won a majority seats in the House of Representatives, partly as a result of the decision by the major opposition parties to boycott the elections. Nearly complete results showed that TRT won 61% of the valid vote and about 460 of the 500 seats. Despite this, Thaksin announced his resignation two days after the election.

Although TRT easily won the election in terms of both votes and seats, the results were seen by Thaksin's opponents and media critics as a rejection of his call for an overwhelming mandate. In parts of Bangkok and in southern Thailand, most TRT candidates were elected on minority votes after the majority of voters used the "abstain" option on their ballot papers. In a number of southern seats TRT candidates failed to poll the required 20% of registered voters, rendering these southern seats invalid and resulting in party dissolution charges against Thai Rak Thai and Democrat Parties. TRT won all the seats in the Northern and North-Eastern (Isan) regions, and also in the Central region apart from Bangkok.

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Wikipedia