Whether you are excited about or bored with the Bangkok gubernatorial poll, we hope this live update will help.
If you are among those who think this Bangkok gubernatorial election is rather boring, we'll try our best to make it less so for you. If it's already exciting to you, hopefully following it with us will make it more so. In other words, this special update is for everyone. We will put on every key development, some rants, some thoughts, some insights.
So, keep coming back to this story, which will remain on our homepage until the winner crosses the finish line. You are cordially invited to send comments or questions to tulsathit01@gmail.com or twitter account @tulsathit.
Saturday, 8.30 am: Does this feel like the eve of an election day? My Facebook timeline surely doesn't give big clues that Bangkok voters are about to make an earth-shattering decision in 24 hours. Politics and national affairs are overestimating themselves. My timeline says family comes first, followed by vacations, foods, feel-good verbatims and jokes.
Politically, there have been sporadic whining over the past few days, of course, mostly from Democrat fans who want to teach their beloved party a lesson. To these people, a Pheu Thai win will be bitter-sweet, like seeing your mother-in-law driving off the cliff in your BMW. (Heard this quote from a TV scientific documentary.)
News websites are lukewarm. Apart from an extremely grotesque portrayal of Sukhumbhand Paribatra on ASTV's home page, there's not much election content to look at. Real action will take place tomorrow, when seemingly all Thai media groups under the sun will be involved one way or another in doing exit polls.
Twitter is feeling more like it, with "city burning" and "massacre" accumulating on my timeline.
My next update will be about an hour from now and we will discuss the latest odds of key candidates.
Saturday, 9.20 am: "If public priorities are what you describe in your Facebook timeline, what on earth are you doing here and now?" I know many of you are wondering. Well, if I can earn a living by reporting that "Friend A yesterday posted more photos of her trip to Manchester whereas the daughter of Friend B has grabbed a seat in Chulalongkorn University's Faculty of Arts", I will.
Ok, let's put some substance into this update. The Nation Multimedia Group's convergent newsroom had been of the opinion that this should be Pongsapat Pongcharoen's election. Although Democrat Sukhumbhand Paribatra stormed into early leads in popularity surveys, most later polls indicated a big slump in Democrat support while Pheu Thai's Pongsapat made convincing gains and finally left the former in his wake. But things got a bit interesting again over the past few days after newest surveys showed Sukhumbhand closing the gap.
If you ask me why the numbers are swinging, my best guess is that the Democrat Party's supporters have not completed their soul-searching yet. Pheu Thai's fans have been resolute and Pongsapat will get their votes come rain or come shine. Therefore, as far as Pongsapat is concerned it doesn't matter whether a survey was done a month ago or yesterday. As for Sukhumbhand Parabitra, he has Democrat-till-I-die voters in his pocket, but there are also broken-hearted party followers who will not vote for him, ashamed Democrat fans who avoided telling the pollsters they would vote for him, and ambivalent love-Democrat-but-can't-stand-Sukhumbhand masses who may make a decision five minutes before marking their ballots.
Will Pongsapat win by a landslide? Or will he just edge out Sukhumbhand? Or will we see a dramatic Sukhumbhand resurgence to steal it? The answer depends a lot on how the badly-swinging numbers of Democrat supporters and potential deserters finally settle.
Saturday, 9.45 am: Time for some quotes. Best I like from the Democrat camp belongs to senior party member Jurin Laksanavisit, speaking on a Sukhumbhand rally stage very recently. "Even if you don't like him (Sukhumbhand), please think about us." The reporter who told me this didn't describe Sukhumbhand's face at the time, but the man always looks like he's ready to cry any minute, doesn't he?
Pheu Thai's Chaturon Chaisaeng (just yesterday): I don't blame Sukhumbhand for crying four days too early, although he could have saved his tears for March 3.
Ouch....
Saturday, 11 am: We have had 8 Bangkok gubernatorial elections and only two "independent" candidates have won so far. Chamlong Srimuang and Bhichit Rattakul, however, were far more attractive than Seripisut Temiyavej, Suharit Siamwalla and Kosit Suvinitjit. The three leading independents in this race have a mountain to climb, according to popularity polls, but an interesting point is that while the Democrats have been begging voters not to go for an alternative, Pheu Thai will actually be happy if the trio do better than expected. Pheu Thai believes support for Pongsapat cannot be swayed, whereas votes for the independents will be at Sukhumbhand's expense.
The Democrats have been drumming up the "fear factor". Whether that will succeed or backfire depends on the timing and how much they do it. The opposition party has left it late before screaming "Don't vote for absolute control". Whehter that was a planned strategy or out of desperation, it has limited Pheu Thai's chances of response and given voters little time to think if it was a hit below the belt. Pongsapat is dancing around the ring, obviously not wanting to drag national politics into it.
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Article source: http://www.thethailandlinks.com/2013/03/02/bangkok-election-the-countdown-begins/
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