Thailand goes to polls

Polls opened on Sunday for tense elections in Thailand with opposition demonstrators preventing voting in parts of the country, a day after a gunfight between rival protesters in Bangkok raised fears of more violence. The snap poll was called by Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra in an unsuccessful attempt to quell rising tensions in the nation, which has seen three months of sometimes bloody rallies aimed at toppling her government. Protesters want the election delayed by a year or more so an unelected “people’s council” can implement vaguely-defined reforms to expunge the influence of Yingluck’s divisive brother Thaksin – a former preme minister ousted in a 2006 coup that unleashed a cycle of political unrest in the country. Voting could not go ahead in 45 out of the nation’s 375 constituencies because of the actions of anti-government protesters, authorities said. In the south, a stronghold of the anti-government movement, protesters stopped post offices from distributing ballot sheets and boxes to polling stations in 42 constituencies, said Election Commission secretary general Puchong Nutrawong. In Bangkok polls were unable to be held in at least three constituencies, including in Lak Si – the scene of a dramatic gun battle between pro-and anti-government protesters on Saturday which left at least seven people wounded. But in some areas of the capital voting appeared to start without disruption by the opposition protesters, who have occupied key intersections in the city for a fortnight in a self-styled “shutdown” aimed at intensifying pressure on Yingluck’s caretaker government. Yingluck was among the early voters, casting her ballot in front of the media at a polling station in the capital, according to AFP.