Latest report from Matichon with unofficial results is Surachart Charnpradit of Puea Thai with 123,557 votes and Chart Thai Pattana's Sakulthip Angkasakulkiat with 75,420 votes in the by-election in Sri Saket Constituency No. 1. So far the victory margin is 47,000 votes.
BP: Unsure whether this in includes advance voting, but regardless Puea Thai have won the seat.
In many ways, last week's by-election in Sakon Nakhon wasn't really the big test as it was hyped up to be as it was a TRT/PPP stronghold. PPP won all of the constituency seats in the 2007 general election although at least on MP had switched their support to Bhum Jai Thai, but this hype was not just media hype. Bhum Jai Thai devoted significant resources to contesting it, leaked internal polls pointing to their victory, and publicly stated they were confident they would win the seat. Also, given Puea Thai's poor performance at the January by-elections and Songkran violence, there were doubts on whether Puea Thai would win, but in the end it was a comfortable win for Puea Thai. Bhum Jai Thai had hoped the hype would work in their favour, but Puea Thai came home strongly.
However, this week's by-election in Sri Saket should have been more competitive. In the 2007 general election, the 6 candidates who won the most votes in the 1st constituency of Sri Saket in 2007 are as follows:
No. 1 นาย ธเนศ เครือรัตน์ 7 พลังประชาชน 117,525 (PPP)
No. 2 นาย สิริพงศ์ อังคสกุลเกียรติ 19 ชาติไทย 107,351 (Chat Thai)
No. 3 นาย ปวีณ แซ่จึง 9 พลังประชาชน 105,231 (PPP)
N0. 4 นาย สุรชาติ ชาญประดิษฐ์ 8 พลังประชาชน 102,556 (PPP - Surachart Charnpradit (the Puea Thai candidate this time))
No. 5 นาย ณรงค์สิทธิ์ เครือรัตน์ 18 เพื่อแผ่นดิน 60,632
No. 6 นางสาว วิลัดดา อินฉัตร 20 ชาติไทย 44,942
BP: No. 2 of Chat Thai is Sirpong Angkasakulkiat. His mother was the Chat Thai Pattana candidate for the by-election. At that time, the first three became MPs
NOTE: Statistics come from a zip file (4MBs) entitled MP50_report available from the EC website. BP downloaded it from here months ago and it still appears to be available.
However, the 2007 general election was not the last election in Sri Saket Constituency No. 1. As a result of the Constitutional Court dissolving Chat Thai, the Chat Thai MP (ie. Sirpong Angkasakulkiat) was an executive and lost his seat. There was a by-election in January 2009 and Suda Promduang of Pracharaj beat Chat Thai Pattana's candidate Sakulthip Angkasakulkiat (ie CTP's candidate in the June by-election). It is unsure how much support was provided to Pracharaj by Puea Thai particularly with news of the Newin-Snoh alliance becoming clearer much later.
Some initial thoughts:
Last week's result strengthened the Democrats as it weakened Bhum Jai Thai. The Dems could threaten a dissolution and Bhum Jai Thai must know they are not ready to contest a general election hence the Dems have this over Bhum Jai Thai - for a contrary view see Chula political Pitch.
However, this week results are slightly different. First, Chat Thai Pattana were never going to ditch the coalition. Second, it starts to raise public questions about how popular this government is given the two defeats - it comes at the time of poll result last week which showed a significant drop in people's satisfaction with the government (although that news story doesn't tell the full story of the poll - more in a later post). Third, it gives increasing momentum to Thaksin fever and that he is "back". Fourth, it provides moral support to the "reds".
It is like a joke, once funny and twice not. Now, Bhum Jai Thai losing and Puea Thai wasn't that bad for the Democrats, but for Puea Thai to win twice, that is a different story as the joke quickly starts to become not funny.
Nevertheless, in the short-term, the loss means none of the government of the coalition parties want a general election as they are all collectively worried about Thaksin (maybe want to qualify "all" as anyone considering jumping back to Puea Thai wouldn't be worried) so this would strengthen the government and remove doubts of a snap election and worries over change of economic policies.
However, the problem is how short is the "short-term"? If some coalition MPs start to see the writing on the wall, they may shift their support to Puea Thai (ie be the first "rats" to jump the sinking ship) as later defectors may not be accepted.
Expect to see come consolidation amongst the parties and MPs in the coalition who don't belong to Newin's faction or the Democrats (ie Chat Thai Pattana and ex-TRT types of Puea Paendin). They will want to strengthen their position in the Central Region and some provinces in the North and the Northeast. This though is a direct threat to the Democrats as one reason for their strong performance in 2007 was all the Central Region seats they were able to pick up off others.
btw, was BP the only who noticed that Chat Thai Pattana seemed to give up earlier in the week? Most of the Chat Thai crowd including Sanan were in Bangkok today for the wedding of Janista (former actress and Chat Thai MP). But even still looking at the press conference today and TV footage of some other events this week, the effort seemed minimal at the end.
New: Plagiarizing plans
9 hours ago
This wasn't just a win it was a beat down. PTP is definitely on a roll at the moment, this could last for a week or it could last until after the next General election. That's the ebb and flow of politics.
My thinking is that the Democrats don't want to see any of their accused share MP's get red carded as that will force them into by-elections with the PTP. If the Democrats don't win those handily over the PTP, or others, they will have no legitimacy as a governing body and will have to call an election.
In both by-elections the Democrats were not defeated, per say, their partners were, but it still shows a lack of support for the government overall.