Sunday, March 3, 2013

Lessons learned for all concerned in today's Bangkok Election

So, he made it, with a big bang too! M.R. Sukhumbhand Patribatra won the Bangkok's gubernatorial election with more than 1.2 million votes, beating his rival from the ruling Pheu Thai Party, Police Gen Pongspat Pongcharoen who got slightly more than 1 million votes. Premier Yingluck was prompt to accept defeat, extending her hand of cooperation for a "seamless" working relations with the Bangkok governor who belongs to the opposition Democrat Party.
Today's election provided a range of "lessons learned" for all parties concerned. The Pheu Thai Party now realizes that the majority of Bangkokians have yet to put their trust in a party that was involved in violent acts in the capital a few years back. Thaksin Shinawatra's confidence to "easily beating" the Democrats in Bangkok was flawed. The misplaced polls that had Pongspat leading the way before the ballot-casting must have stirred some "silent voters" to come out to cast their votes for fear that the polls might be proved right.
The Democrats, too, must have come to the realization that its dominance of the Bangkok constituencies wasn't always guaranteed. In fact, the fact that Pongspat obtained more than one million votes must have been awake-up call for those who thought Bangkokians would always vote against the powers-that-be.
Various polling agencies must now conduct some serious soul-searching and to revise their polling techniques which have now been proven seriously flawed. It would take quite a while before any trust in all those well-known polls could be restored. And they must admit that it's unfair and unprofessional to blame it all on the respondents who have been accused of the pollsters of having "lied" to the volunteers seeking their views.
Bangkokians have spoken, and loudly so...with almost 64% voter turnout, much higher than the last election despite the downpours in certain constituencies this afternoon.

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