Polls close in Thailand's Constitution referendum

BANGKOK, Aug 7 (TNA) – The poll on the draft Constitution closes while the Election Commission expects 95 per cent of the unofficial voting results of the referendum on the draft charter was expected to be known by 9pm on Sunday. The current military government promised to hold a general election in 2017 regardless of the outcome. The vote counting will start at 4.30pm. after ballot boxes closes at 4 pm. It is expected that 80 per cent of vote tallies will be completed around 8 pm. if there is no disruption or delays, caused by rainfalls, telephone signals. The preliminary results were expected at around 8pm. The polls conducted before the referendum suggested a small lead in favour of accepting the new constitution, but most voters were undecided. Thailand's major political parties rejected the constitution ahead of the vote, while the government banned all sides from referendum campaigning for agree or reject the charter. EC Commissioner Somchai Srisut-thiyakorn said the vote counting at polling units will be completed around 6pm and the results will be sent through “Rapid Report” application to the EC’s centre. It is the first time this system is applied in vote counting. The real-time results will be shown at the Election Commission office on two screens. The first one will display the information about voter turnout and the number of voided and valid ballots while the other screen will report the vote results of each province. Unofficial results will be broadcast live on television and the EC Facebook’s page. This is the second Constitution referendum in Thai political history, following the last referendum in 2007. Around 50.5 million Thai citizens out of the total population of 65 million are eligible to vote this time. The ballot has two questions: "Do you accept the 2016 draft of the constitution?" and "In order to reform the country continuously according to the strategy, should the Senate be allowed to join the House of Representatives in the voting process to select a prime minister for the first five-year period after the first National Assembly is formed under this constitution?" If passed, the draft constitution will become Thailand's 20th constitution since it became a constitutional monarchy in 1932. And the result of the additional question, if passed, will be added into the Transitory Provisions of the constitution, thus giving 250 senators picked by the the National Council for Peace and Order who take over the administrative power in 2014, the authority to participate in the process to elect a prime minister along with 500 elected members of House of Representatives. (TNA)