Thai Officials Call for Another Election

Dressed up in black, four women voters tear up their ballots in a protest against the Thai election commission at a polling station in Songkhla province, southern Thailand Sunday, April 23, 2006. Protesting against the regime of outgoing Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, voters in southern Thailand wore black and tore up their ballots Sunday, in another round of parliamentary elections to avert a looming constitutional breakdown. (AP Photo/Daily News) (Daily News - AP)

BANGKOK, Thailand -- Thai electoral officials on Monday called a third round of elections after weekend voting failed to fill several seats in Parliament, deepening the country's political crisis.

Boycotts, ballot destruction and some violence punctuated voting Sunday in 40 constituencies where seats were left vacant in earlier polling for the lower house of Parliament, which the constitution bars from convening unless all seats are filled.

Thailand has never before faced this problem, and officials are scrambling to avoid having the country with no clear leadership.

Ekachai Warrunprapa, the Election Commission's secretary-general, announced at a news conference that new voting would be held Saturday in 13 districts where candidates of the governing Thai Rak Thai party who ran unopposed failed to meet the minimum requirement for a win. The constitution requires unopposed candidates to get at least 20 percent of the votes.

The political crisis was triggered by an opposition boycott of April 2 elections, which were called by former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra in an effort to defuse street protests that demanded he step down over allegations of corruption and abuse of power.

His opponents called on voters to choose the "no vote" option on their ballots or destroy their ballots in the April 2 polling, and again during Sunday's follow-up vote.

Thaksin handed over power to a caretaker leader April 4 after the first round left 40 Parliament seats vacant. He said was taking "a break" from politics, but critics say he plans a comeback.

The constitution stipulates that Parliament should convene within 30 days of an election to form a new government, but also that it cannot do so unless all 500 seats of the lower house are filled.

Sunday's voting was concentrated in southern Thailand, a center of opposition to the former prime minister and the scene of a bloody Muslim insurgency.

On Friday, following complaints from the opposition Democrat Party, the Supreme Court nullified 42 candidates from small, obscure parties, forcing Thai Rak Thai candidates to run unopposed in 18 southern constituencies and one in central Thailand.

The Democrats claimed Thai Rak Thai had paid the 42 to run so its own candidates could skirt the law requiring unopposed candidates to win 20 percent of the eligible votes.

Before Sunday's voting began, unidentified gunmen shot and killed the driver of a district official and wounded a woman in Narathiwat province, the government Thai News Agency said.

In separate Senate elections Wednesday, two police officers and an election volunteer were killed and 22 people were wounded in attacks by militants in the south, where the insurgency has killed 1,300 people in three Muslim-majority provinces the last two years.