The party backing ousted Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra won the most seats in yesterday's election, preliminary results show.

With 93 percent of the vote counted, the People Power Party (PPP) was heading for 228 seats in the 480-member parliament and said it would form a coalition government.

Abrasive PPP leader Samak Sundaravej said Thaksin had phoned from exile to congratulate him on the result.

Samak told a news conference that he would "certainly be prime minister".

The big question is whether the army and the royalist establishment will stand by and watch PPP make a comeback by proxy. Although some analysts said a strong PPP showing could trigger another coup, others believe the army-appointed government is more likely to try at first to stymie the PPP by disqualifying candidates for vote fraud.

The Election Commission said it had received more than 750 complaints of vote fraud, but was taking only 157 of them seriously. Samak said he did not foresee another coup since the new army chief was a "good guy" committed to keeping out of politics.

The army would prefer a government led by the Democrats, the main opposition during Thaksin's five years in power, although most analysts agree such a coalition would be weak and unlikely to last beyond a year.

The Democrats, led by Oxford-educated Abhisit Vejjajiva - the man foreign investors want to see as the next prime minister - looked set to take around 166 seats.

Financial markets hope the return of an elected government will signal the end of a period of disappointing economic growth, likely to fall towards four percent this year from 5.1 percent in 2006 and the lowest rate in six years.

At polling stations across Bangkok, voters said they were just tired of a political mess now in its third year.

"It doesn't really matter which party gets in just as long as we have a government as soon as possible," said Anunt, 60.

Both the pro- and anti-Thaksin camps have said they would take to the streets if they felt the other side had gained an upper hand in the polls unfairly. Major street protests could trigger another military foray into politics, analysts say.

Last year's coup was the 18th in 75 years of on-off democracy in Thailand. Thaksin's Thai Rak Thai party has since been dissolved and he and 110 party members barred from politics for five years.

The uncertainty has worried revered King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who urged soldiers and police to use their spiritual "strength" to pull the nation out of the long-running crisis.

Agencies

(China Daily 12/24/2007 page7)