Bangkok Election Shows Government Support Still Strong

"In the first test of voter sentiment after May's bloody crackdown on anti-government protesters, Thailand's ruling Democrat Party won a by-election in Bangkok on Sunday. Less than an hour after poll results were announced, a bomb exploded at a bus stop in the city center, killing one and injuring ten people as political violence and a State of Emergency, originally invoked during the May disturbances, continued in force. On Monday, an army general said he believed the bomb was unrelated to the election.

The polling district, Bangkok's Constituency 6, is located where the countryside gives way to the capital's urban sprawl and where many inhabitants are migrants from regions where anti-government sentiment is strong. In a controversial strategy, the opposition Puea Thai Party chose to field as its candidate Korkaew Pikulthong, one of several dozen leaders of the anti-government Red Shirt movement who have been imprisoned under the State of Emergency. Korkaew's appeals to Thai courts to release him so that he could campaign were denied.

Although only about 190,000 voters cast their ballots in a low turnout, the contest was still seen as a litmus test on public opinion and the future electoral prospects of the government and its opposition. The current coalition government can hold office until the end of 2011, but Prime Minister Abhsiit Vejjajiva has said national elections could be held earlier than that if calm and stability returns. The conflicts between supporters of the government and its opponents represent the deepest and bitterest political divisions Thailand has seen since the 1970s."

(See photos of the protests in Bangkok.)

Read the full story at Time.com