Latest PAO chairmen elections

Last Sunday, some more province had their elections for the provincial administrative organization (PAO). Sadly I have no real overview on which province will have its election on which date - four years ago there were two rounds, and Buriram was some more weeks earlier already. While the councils have ended their terms after four years and most likely the same provinces will vote together as four years ago, it is much more complicate for the PAO chairman. If any of these leave their office prematurely - because they resign to call for a snap election, they get red-carded for electoral fraud or die, a chairman election is called then and then the new chairman has a full four year term as well. Thus only in those provinces where both the council and the chairmen ended their terms in normal way since the PAO elections were synchronized in 2004, the two will be elected on the same date this year.

The English press only mentioned two chairmen elections from last Sunday - Nakhon Ratchasima getting its first female chairman, and the Democrat party winner of Kanchanaburi being accused of electoral fraud. In the Thai press I found only one additional one, in Suphanburi the incumbent Bunchu Chansuwan (บุญชู จันทร์สุวรรณ) has been the clear winner gaining 70% of the valid votes. On April 7, Phuket will vote for their PAO chairman, and for the most other provinces I have lost track of when the term of the chairman ends and thus have this election soon. As these elections are organized by the provincial election commission (EC), there is no single overview page giving all the dates at one look. And some of the websites of the provincial EC branches are very bad, no data or a long time since the last update. But at least for the three elections last Sunday I was able to find the full numbers, e.g. for Suphanburi at the EC and thus was able to add them into my province XML.

<official title="PAOChairman" name="บุญชู จันทร์สุวรรณ" begin="2012-03-18">
  <election date="2012-03-18">
    <candidates eligiblevoter="641014" invalidvotes="11285" abstainvotes="9096">
      <candidate id="1" name="สมศักดิ์ รักซ้อน" votes="94720"/>
      <candidate id="2" name="อิสระ บุญญาอรุณเนตร" votes="8291"/>
      <candidate id="3" name="บุญชู จันทร์สุวรรณ" votes="247833"/>
    </candidates>
  </election>
</official>