Samut Prakan PAO Chairman elections

Last Sunday, the citizen of Samut Prakan province were called to elect a new chairman of the Provincial Administrative Organization, as the term for the previous chairman Amnuai Ratnithat (อำนวย รัศมิทัต) had resigned from his post, not too long before his term ended. He was elected in August 2007, so a chairman election was to be held end of this year anyway. Also this previous election was done prematurely, as in June 2007 his predecessor Somphon Asavahame (สมพร อัศวเหม) died before ending his term.

A total of five candidates were running, hopefully correctly transcribed:

1. Chonsawat Asavahame (ชนม์สวัสดิ์ อัศวเหม), son of former deputy interior minister Watthana Asavahame. Don't know how he is related with the former PAO chairman Somphon. Chonsawat was mayor of Samut Prakan city twice.
   
2. Amnuai Rassamithat (อำนวย รัศมิทัต), according to the news article I used for this list he was PAO chairman before, but must have been before 2006. The PAO website sadly has no list of their former chairmen.
   
3. Tanaphon Kharomprat (ธนภณ คารมปราชย์) of the New Politics Party.
   
4. Phattarawat Apidennaphasay (ภัทรวดี อภิเด่นนภาลัย), affiliated with the UDD (red shirts). The only female candidate.
   
5. Thonphat Thanthonpat (ธนภัท ธัญธนพัต), a local candidate
   

Richard Barrow, the most prolific English language blogger and tweeter in Thailand, has been life covering the vote counting on Twitter with many tweeted photos, but not until the counting was finished at 10 am on Monday. Several of the photos on the vote counting are collected in his blog. As reported by ThaiToday, the winner is candidate one, Chonsawat Asavahame, with 157,577 votes. Second has been candidate two with 148,717 votes. The third and last one with any significant number of votes has been candidate four with 114,218. Candidate three won just 4,138 votes, and number five only 2,186. A total of 848,111 citizen were called to votes, so the turnout was 54%. 28,060 chose the No vote on their ballot, another 11,208 were invalid. The result is now pending approval by the Election Commission, so if no complaints is raised it will become official in about one month.