Manoon Dermkarnchanadi, election director of Trang's Constituency 1, said scores of local state officials and volunteers had quit as ballot counters. They claimed they could not bear the mounting pressure, he said. Trang, which is the home province of former Democrat leader Chuan Leekpai, is a major stronghold of the party.

Like most other provinces in the South, Trang saw the number of abstention votes exceed those cast for candidates from the ruling Thai Rak Thai Party in last Sunday's election.

On Sunday night, about 200 people shouted and cursed at staff at ballot-counting venues in protest over what they alleged was unfair counting in "dim light" intended to help the TRT contender.

The resignations, Manoon said, would affect the by-election in the constituency on April 23, which is being held because the sole candidate failed to win the 20 per cent of eligible votes required by law.

He said the local EC had asked military personnel to replace the ballot counters who had quit.

Even the 10 local EC members wanted to quit, but the provincial EC director prevented them from doing so because it would not be possible to replace them in time for the by-election, Manoon said.

Srisomphop Chitpiromsri, a political scientist at Prince of Songkhla University, said he was waorried that the 37 other southern constituencies where by-elections will be held would face the same problem.

With the Democrats' campaign to boycott the election and encourage voters to tick the "abstain" box, local officials were under intense pressure to decide whether or not to carry on their temporary duties, Srisomphop added.

The Nation

Trang