The fatal result of 'Vote Yellow and Red will win'

Nobody is quite clear who started to spread the slogan but it apparently worked.

Samran Rodpetch, spokesman of New Politics Party, says one of the reasons for the party's heavy defeat in Sunday's local city assembly and district assemblies' elections was the idea floated against the party:

"If you vote for Yellows, Reds will win."

It was meant to suggest that the "yellow votes" would undercut the Democrats. So, if you voted for a NPP candidate, you would only take away the vote from the Democrat candidate, thereby enabling a Pheau Thai candidate (red) to win.

Samran said his party had tried desperately to tell Bangkok voters that that slogan wasn't true. "We tried to tell voters that if you vote yellow, you will get yellow. If you vote for New Politics, you would get New Politics. If you vote for Pheau Thai, you would get a Pheau Thai member..."

But he admitted that the negative message against NPP seemed to have stuck. "It's an old trick played against us...just like many years ago when some people started to spread the words that Chamlong led people to death..."

Other factors contributing to the loss (the party failed to get even one candidate elected),he wrote in his column in Manager Daily yesterday, included: The party wasn't 100% ready; work teams and candidates were relatively new; most candidates had not had any real records of work locally; voter turnout was only 41% and vote buying and fraudulent practices were rampant.