Undecided Bangkok voters lean to Thaksin
Undecided Bangkok voters lean to Thaksin
BANGKOK (Reuters): Nearly half of Bangkok voters have not yet
decided who they will vote for in Thailand's January 6 general
election, but most undecided voters are leaning toward telecoms
tycoon Thaksin Shinawatra, a poll showed on Monday.
The poll, by the Institute of Political Development and
Institute of Social and Economic Policy (ISEP) on Dec. 5-10,
showed 48 percent of Bangkok residents questioned had not yet
made up their minds who they would vote for.
But of the 3,410 undecided respondents, 52.8 percent said they
were leaning towards Thaksin's Thai Rak Thai (Thais Love Thais)
party, with 26 percent likely to vote for Prime Minister Chuan
Leekpai's Democrat Party.
"If nothing drastic happens to alter public opinion, the
Democrats are trailing Thai Rak Thai in a way that they would
have to work really hard to close the gap," said Sumit
Champrasit, vice president of ISEP.
The poll did not give the choice of voters who had already
made up their minds.
It showed 79 percent of the undecided voters in Bangkok said
they would make up their minds in the week before election day,
including 31 percent who would wait until the actual day before
making their decision.
More than half of the undecided voters, 55.32 percent, said
they were still learning more about each political party and
their candidates.
But the poll showed only 1.12 percent of undecided voters were
waiting for the outcomes of election fraud and graft
investigations before making up their minds.
Thaksin has been leading Chuan in opinion polls for months but
his campaign has been overshadowed by an investigation into his
financial affairs by the country's anti-graft watchdog.
He is under investigation by the National Counter Corruption
Committee after being accused of failing to declare shares in
several companies. Thaksin denies any wrongdoing.
If the anti-graft agency decides he deliberately intended to
conceal his assets, he faces a five-year ban from politics.