The Pheu Thai Party still leads the Democrat Party in party-list votes across the country for the July 3 general election, but not in Bangkok, according to Dusit Poll’s second opinion survey released yesterday.
The poll was based on responses from 4,694 people across the country from May 23-28.
Pheu Thai continues to lead the ruling Democrats by about five percentage points. Of the respondents, 43.16 per cent said they would vote for Pheu Thai in the party-list system and 37.45 per cent said they would vote for the Democrats, while 7.08 per cent have not decided yet.
In Bangkok, the Democrats were ahead of Pheu Thai in a neck and neck race with 38.88 per cent to 35.46 per cent, and 11.87 per cent undecided.
Meanwhile, an Abac poll showed most respondents agree that the populist polices of political parties would be no use if the country remained torn by political conflicts.
Of the respondents, 74.8 per cent said policies on how to restore the country’s unity will be the deciding factor in their choice of the party they vote for; 68.7 per cent said buying votes would help bring election victory to political parties; 68.7 per cent said there was vote-buying in their constituencies and 29.8 per cent said the money offered to buy votes was between Bt500-Bt1,000.
On May 20, 2011, Matichon Online had an article quoting [a source?] from a Bhum Jai Thai meeting where Newin [de facto leader of Bhum Jai Thai] stated that internal polling showed that Puea Thai would win 210 seats, Democrats 160, and Bhum Jai* 70+ This is seemingly confirmed by what Newin said publicly yesterday he said, as quoted by Matichon, that the Democrats would win 160 seats and Puea Thai about 210 seats, but not more than half (i.e not more than 250)
Matichon Weekly, May 20-26, on page 8 had an article entitled “จับแนวทาง วิเคราะห์ แนวทางของ สุวัจน์ ลิปตพัลลภ ทะลุผ่าน “ประชาธิปัตย์” which quoted Suwat Liptapanlop, the de facto leader of Chart Pattana Puea Pandin Party, who stated that Puea Thai will win 220 seats, Democrats 180 and there will be around 100 seats left for the smaller parties.
BP: Now, of course, one should not blindly accept what a politician says about their own party’s chances and/or how they negatively portray their opponents chances. However, if Newin has told Bhum Jai Thai members (and now also the media) that Puea Thai will win 210 seats, is he doing this to somehow help Puea Thai? That doesn’t make sense. His relationship with Puea Thai is fractured and Puea Thai have stated (for now at least) that they will not form a government with Bhum Jai Thai.
If anything, Newin should be wanting to exaggerate the success of the Democrats since a Democrat+Bhum Jai+other parties excluding Puea Thai is Newin’s way of getting back into government and downplay Puea Thai’s chances – he has subtly done this now by saying that Yingluck, who is providing momentum to the Puea Thai campaign, won’t be PM. Having said that Newin needs to somehow account for how Bhum Jai Thai gets to 70 seats and given that they will also be contesting a number of seats in the Central Region and elsewhere outside of the Northeast they will be in competition with the Democrats in some seats. Overall, BP thinks that Newin slightly underestimates Democrat and Puea Thai numbers.
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