Centre, Poramase Ngampiches
Poramase Ngampiches of the “We Love Pattaya group” has won the Pattaya mayoral election, according to the unofficial results from fresh elections held yesterday (Sunday) at two polling stations, following a delay in issuing results from the May 22nd election, the first such in a decade, due to a mismatch between the number of ballots cast and registered voters.
Altogether he garnered 14,482 votes, followed by Sinchai Wattanasartsathorn of Pattaya Ruamjai group, who received 12,524 votes. Kittisak Nilwattanathochai, of the Move Forward party-backed Pattaya Future group, came third, with 8,774 votes and Sakchai Tanghoh received 990 votes.
38,524 of the 78,018 eligible voters cast ballots, representing a 49.38% voter turnout. There were 1,004 invalid votes and 750 blank ballots.
The fresh elections were held at polling station 2 in Constituency 1 and at polling station 20 in Constituency 4 yesterday, after it was discovered that the number ballots counted did not match the number of voters registered.
Turnout for the re-run voting at the two polling stations yesterday was very low. Only 122 of the 499 eligible voters cast ballots in Constituency 1 and 82 of 594 eligible voters in Constituency 4.
The unofficial vote count last night showed Poramase received 133 votes, 47 for Sinchai, 15 votes for Kittisak and Sakchai received none. There were three invalid votes and six blank ballots.