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.