The Referendum

[sonnyJ]

polls closed at 4pm local

Yeh, got caught by that Yahoo or whatever pre-poll thing saying 70% yes win(out of votes cast), might be pretty accurate actually.

Hope they are not dividing the country too far apart,

Is it a beer night tonight?

[opalhort]

live poll result updates can be found here:

http://202.60.199.51/en/?zone=0

to get the latest results you have to click on refresh

opalhort

[Mid]

Is it a beer night tonight?

[lannarebirth]

A good overview of the new constitution

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I've unsuccessfully searched the Thai English language press for some time for a good analysis of the issues involved in the proposed new constitution. The same with the international press. Then today I came across an article in Thursday's London Financial Times which seems to be quite a masterly overview of what is now at stake. It's written by the FT Bangkok bureau chief, a veteran of the Bangkok scene, whose reports on Thailand and SE Asia are just about the only honest ones that appear in the English-language press in Europe.

I found this on the FT Web site through Google. For those who're interested the following link should take you there:

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/a38f4de8-4b90-11dc...00779fd2ac.html

If any body has problems, PM me and I'll email a downloaded copy.

Thanks for that link, an excellent summation of what the coup was really about, what the constitution is supposed to achieve, and what the longer term strategy of those behind the coup intend.

Naturally there will still be those here, blinded by their anti-Taksin paranoia, that think this referendum has something to do with democracy. Also generally in a referendum the government outlines the YES and NO cases for the population to evaluate, whereas here that was far from the case, more a vote YES or else.

You must think why did so many middle class support the coup, when they didn't in 1991.

It's because they know of Thaksin's massive corruption, change of laws to benefit his companies, interference in every check and balance, suspected bribery and bribery attempts of judges, etc. The elected senate was a shambles, the first one contained a few good men but most were willing to remain silent and unwilling to monitor Thaksin. The second was even worse with a large percentage being relatives of sitting TRT MPs!

It's a fact many MPs can be bought. Just last week several MPs who said they would join Chart Thai reversed their decision and went to Thaksin's nominee, Palang Prachachon Party. A figure of 30 million baht per head was mentioned.

Thaksin is still very rich and he will do anything to regain power.

Do you know that when he was PM he refused to answer many questions from the press and even dissolved Parliament after one year rather than face questions from The Opposition.

There is nothing democratic about the man.

Siripon,

Your post echoes all the things my own gf has said to me. My girlfriend is pro-democracy, but does not want to see her countrys people shed blood over the matter. Particularly when it's only to serve the interests of power hungry leaders and former leaders. She recognizes that "the democratic vote" has installed some of the worst members of this society, who only saw as their mandate to steal from the people that they were elected t serve. She sees this option as a "timeout" while the continued pursuit of democracy remains. She said she would have voted differently if justice were applied more fairly, but she doesn't see that in view anytime soon.

[ColPyat]

polls closed at 4pm local

Yeh, got caught by that Yahoo or whatever pre-poll thing saying 70% yes win(out of votes cast), might be pretty accurate actually.

Hope they are not dividing the country too far apart,

Is it a beer night tonight?

Not accurate.

Right now, about 54% eligible votes counted,

57% Yes

41% No

2% invalid

[Filer]

Re: the reported marking of voting papers with a number which can be referenced to the voter's identity - which has come up a number of times in this thread.

You may be surprised to know that this is what routinely occurs in all national and local elections in the UK. So elections there are not totally secret. From time to time there have been complaints about this, but, s far as I know, no-one has made a big issue out of it.

At the voting station an official checks your identity against a master list of voters, then writes your voter reference number from that list onto your voting paper when it is given to you. So, the paper goes into the box with your vote on it and your reference number!

This is all done to control the correct issuing of voting papers. However, it would be open to any unscrupulous government or its agencies to check who had voted for a particular party. Who knows, this may already be happening - for example to find out who is voting for the anti-immigration British National party, which has much potential to cause social disruption.

I agree that in the case of Thailand the potential for harm (if this practice is happening) is much greater.

[sonnyJ]

Seems they have stopped counting the votes. Is this the final unofficial result?

So 25,149,147 votes cast out of 45,890,489. They almost reached 55% voting rate.

Yes 57%

No 41%

Void 2%

Bangkok 55%

Central 56%

North 60%

N.East 50%

South 56%

[Solosiam]

I really don't understand the question.

Is it the case that there would be an automatic "Yes" if not enough people vote?

If so surely this would mean anyone thinking of no would be MORE likely to vote.

If not then why the assumption that people would go home to vote "Yes" but not "No" even if that were the case it still seems fair to me, those that really care go to more trouble to vote - isn't that the democratic way?

[LaoPo]

Yes : 14,249,520 Votes

No : 10,419,912 Votes

Void : 479,715 Votes

03.50AM Thai time

But: the numbers staid the same, last couple of hours...

LaoPo

[LinkPopularity]

the very first constitution of Thai law is mostly a copy of the Belgian law (check the old Belgian money and the current Thai money, you will be right if you guess who's been printing it for so long(not anymore, we sold the machines since the euro)) ... it used to be good ...