Three major parties - the Democrats, Pheu Thai and New Politics - yester-day launched bids to win 317 legisla-tive seats in Bangkok on August 29. They hope to generate campaign excitement on the heels of Sunday's by-election.
The Election Commission has com-menced the candidacy registration process, which will be completed on Friday.
Aspiring candidates for 256 district advisory seats can register at district offices and those running for 61 seats in the Bangkok Metropolitan Council (BMC) must declare their candidacy at the Bangkok Metropolitan Youth Centre (Thai-Japan) in Din Daeng.
For the Democrat Party, newly elected MP Panich Vikitsreth and MP ML Apimongkol Sonakul joined the party's team of candidates to complete the registration process.
Pheu Thai Party assigned MP Vicharn Minchainant to escort its can-didates for registration.
The two parties organised crowds of supporters to boost the confidence of their respective candidates.
The rival parties will each field 61 candidates to run for BMC seats, while the New Politics Party (NPP) will endorse 40 candidates.
The drawing of ballot numbers took place without a hitch.
After completing the registration, Vicharn said the main opposition party would contest for all 317 seats.
The opposition would petition for the state of emergency to be lifted to improve the campaigning atmosphere and ensure a fair vote, he said.
"All we are asking is to have a fair chance without intimidation by the government," he said.
Panich confirmed the ruling party would also contest for every seat. The Democrats' campaign strategy will stress smooth cooperation between the national and local governments if the Democrats are elected, he said.
NPP leader Somsak Kosaisuk said his party would contest local elections for the first time, hence there was no projection on how many seats its can-didates would win.
Somsak said his party would aim to secure as many seats as possible even though this might mean competing with the Democrats. The two parties are seen as having the same demo-graphic of supporters in the capital.
At the closing of the first day's reg-istration, 162 candidates had regis-tered to contest for BMC seats.
Of the total, 61 are Democrats, 58 are from Pheu Thai and 30 from the NPP. Matubhum and Prachakorn Thai fielded one candidate each.
In the contest for district advisory seats, Democrat and Pheu Thai field-ed 249 candidates each.
The NPP endorsed 91 candidates, followed by Matubhum with seven.
Nine will run on independent tick-ets. Three political groups fielded seven candidates each. Two other groups endorsed five and four candidates respectively.