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Thailand has set a date for the first general election following
last year's coup that ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra
from power.
The electoral commission said the election would be held on 23
December.
Thailand's military-installed government had promised elections
by the end of the year after it won approval for a new
constitution.
Nearly 58% backed the new draft in a referendum earlier this
month, though many pro-Thaksin areas rejected it.
"We consider 23 December 2007, is the appropriate date,"
election commission chief Apichart Sukhagganond said, according to
the AFP news agency.
"This will give political parties enough time to run their
campaigns," he told reporters, after a meeting with interim Prime
Minister Surayud Chulanont.
Coalition government
Aspiring politicians now have around four months to prepare for
the polls, reports the BBC's Jonathan Head from Bangkok.
Thai Rak Thai, Mr Thaksin's former party, has been renamed the
People Power Party and appointed a veteran right-wing politician,
Samak Sundaravej, to lead it into the election.
Top executives in the party have been barred from holding
political office for five years, and Mr Thaksin remains in exile,
but he retains strong popular support in the poor north and
north-east of Thailand.
Even so, our correspondent adds, the party is unlikely to win
enough votes for an outright majority.
There have been intense negotiations among Thailand's
traditional political power-brokers in recent weeks to form other
new parties for the election.
Many are local strongmen who have dominated their districts for
decades and who joined Thai Rak Thai while Mr Thaksin was in
office, but broke away after last year's coup.
The main party which opposed Mr Thaksin, the Democrats, has
survived the last year intact, but its support has dwindled in
recent years, and it is also unlikely to win a majority.
That means the next government will almost certainly be a
coalition - and in the past, coalition governments in Thailand have
acquired a reputation for being short-lived, and very corrupt, our
correspondent says.
Source:
BBC
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