Thai Premier Wins Election, but Crisis Only Worsens

Several clashes already broke out last week between Thaksin's supporters and detractors, raising the prospect that the military or Thailand's revered King Bhumibol Adulyadej could intervene to name a new interim government and restore calm.

Although Thailand's military has a long history of coups, senior officers have said they plan to remain on the sidelines.

Thaksin's challengers are divided over whether the king should press the prime minister to resign, with skeptics warning that this could undermine the country's democracy.

But if the protests provoke bloodshed -- so far the only fatality was reportedly from the heat -- many politicians say they expect the king would signal that it is time for the military to move in. The prime minister himself could also declare emergency rule in response to mounting unrest.

Election observers have warned that violence could erupt if provinces traditionally opposed to Thaksin respond angrily to the election of pro-government candidates from their districts.

Once the most popular elected prime minister in his country's history, Thaksin, 56, called the elections three years early in a bid to defuse a crisis that has repeatedly drawn tens of thousands of protesters into the streets and parks of the capital.

But opposition parties announced they would boycott the election on the grounds it would lend Thaksin undeserved legitimacy. "What we did when we took the position was to make a statement, and we made a statement," Abhisit Vejjajiva, leader of the opposition Democrat Party, told reporters.

As the election approached, the prime minister sought to win over foes by offering them cabinet positions and pledging to undertake political reforms. He also promised to step down if he failed to gain half the vote.

His opponents balked. Some opposition leaders urged Thais to go to the polls but vote to abstain.

Election returns reflected the deep rift that has opened between Bangkok and Thailand's rural hinterlands to the north and east.

In the capital, where many intellectuals and middle-class Thais object to what they call Thaksin's autocratic rule, early results showed abstentions outrunning votes for the prime minister.

But the initial results also indicated he still enjoys broad support in the countryside, where villagers are grateful for his populist policies including subsidized health care, village investment funds and rural debt restructuring.

Shortly after the polls closed Sunday, small bombs exploded outside at least two election stations in the southern province of Narathiwat, where Muslim insurgents have been waging a two-year uprising. Several security officers were wounded, police said. Earlier in the day, police defused another bomb in neighboring Pattani province.

Despite underlying anxiety in the capital, Bangkok was unusually quiet on a sunny election day. The campaign posters and billboards that plastered roadsides before previous elections were largely missing and the mass demonstrations of recent weeks were suspended shortly before the weekend.

At a voting station in Bangkok's Mater Dei Institute, a steady stream of voters filed beneath the basketball hoops of the school's gymnasium to cast their ballots. Voters said most of the people in this affluent downtown district had abstained.

"People here don't like Thaksin. Most prefer other parties," said Pear Pongsachareonnont, 25, a soft-spoken doctor.

"After the election, Thaksin will remain the same," she continued, "but people's opposition to him will grow stronger because people will still refuse to accept him."

Just outside the school's parking lot, where voters arrived in Mercedes, BMWs and SUVs, Suriya Suwannasoya, 35, had a different opinion. Clad in the orange vest of a motorcycle taxi driver and cradling his helmet in his arms, he said he remained loyal to Thaksin, as does nearly everyone in his home town in Thailand's rural northeast. Suriya said he felt so strongly that he had arranged to vote ahead of time rather than risk missing the chance because of work.

"The election will not end the political crisis," Suriya said as a young woman took a seat on his motorbike. "Maybe if there's a new prime minister, the situation will calm down, but I still think Thaksin should stay."