-BANGKOK
Thailand held re-run elections in five provinces where voting was disrupted in last month’s poll by anti-government protesters who decamped from a main Bangkok intersection on Sunday and moved inside a central park.
There were no reports of violence at Sunday’s vote, although gunfire and at least two explosions had raised tension in Bangkok before the original February 2 general election.
Whatever the result, the vote alone cannot restore stability in a deeply polarized country popular with tourists and investors yet blighted by eight years of political turmoil.
The protesters, seeking to unseat Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, gathered in central Lumpini Park, where hundreds already sleep in tents alongside boating lakes and under trees, after protest leader Suthep Thaugsuban said they would abandon other sites in the city.
Anti-government posters saying “Get out!” and “Stop cheating farmers!”, a reference to a failed rice subsidy scheme, blew in the dust past abandoned Suthep cutouts as traffic began to ease its way through the intersection on the edge of the Silom financial district.
Another protest site was dismantled, with stages, huge screens, giant speakers and amplifiers, tents, stalls and mobile toilets cleared away overnight, but the elevated highway along the south side of Lumpini Park was still blocked by tires and sandbags.
Voting was disrupted on February 2 in 18 percent of constituencies, 69 out of 375, nationwide, the Election Commission said, affecting 18 of 77 provinces.
Election re-runs planned for April in other provinces have been suspended pending a court decision on procedures.
Election Commission secretary-general Puchong Nutrawong said voting had gone ahead peacefully. About 20 protesters blew whistles at a polling station in Petchburi province, southwest of the capital, but did nothing to block voting.
“They came to show symbolic protest and they have already gone,” he said, not giving details of voter turnout. “Generally, polls are running smoothly.”
