Nirmal Om newsline

Thai King Makers are Political outfits Last year's coup which ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra some 45 million Thais are eligible to cast their ballots as polls opened at 8 a.m. (0100 GMT), today on Sunday, 23 December 2007, with unofficial results expected by midnight,few expect the country's third election in two years will solve the country's problems. People Power Party (PPP), a political outfit for supporters of former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra,was ousted in a bloodless fifteen months ago. Thaksin would return from self-exile in London said on Friday he could be back in February if voters handed the party a majority in the 480-seat parliament. Political Analysts say the army and the royalist establishment, which Thaksin supporters blame for the coup, will try to stymie a PPP-led government by seeking to disqualify its candidates or tie up the party in legal challenges.The army and its proxies are expected to push for a coalition led by the Democrats, th...

Suan Dusit exit poll, the PPP won 256 of the 480 contested seats, with the Democrats coming in second with 162 seats. But another poll conducted by ABAC had the PPP with 202 seats and Democrats with 146, and several of the medium-sized parties with more than 40 seats. Two main rivals in Sunday's polls were the People Power Party (PPP), PPP is headed by Samak Sundaravej, 72, a veteran Thai politician with a right-wing past who has dubbed himself a "nominee" for Thaksin and whose main platform has been to bring Thaksin Shinawatra back to Thailand and the Democrat Party, the main opposition party Democrat Party is led by Abhisit, 43, an Oxford-educated liberal politician who has campaigned on his clean record . Last year's coup which ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra some 45 million Thais are eligible to cast their ballots,Voting at 85,000 polling stations nationwide opened at 8 am and closed at 3 pm. today on Sunday, 23 December 2007, with unofficial results expe...

Islam Karimov's victory a foregone conclusion ,Karimov, who turns 70 in January and has led the country for 18 years, is against the three other candidates who registered with the election commission are regarded as Karimov loyalists and have praised him publicly and appears to be an eye wash election. External observers in the degree of choice facing Uzbek voters needs no know opposition as the opposition parties are not allowed to participate. Legal basis for Karimov's candidacy remains contentious, since the Uzbek constitution bars a president from serving more than two terms.Authorities already ignored the rule when they approved his bid in mid-November. Karimov, a former communist party boss, has already extended his term in office twice through referendums, in 1995 and 2002. The OSCE's election-monitoring body, the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), said in a recent report that "neither the [Uzbek] election administration nor the represe...

Country faces tenth postponement to vote to elect its President in Lebanon parliament is due to the gap widens between the pro-Western ruling parliamentary majority and Syrian-backed opposition. Beirut: 23 December:Lawmakers were set to meet on Saturday to vote for a new head of state, but the session was put off the previous night until 29th December. As UN Under Secretary General Lynn Pascoe warned the Security Council on Friday that the situation in Lebanon was "dangerous and unsustainable," many politicians and the media were not expecting any vote to take place before year end. Parliament speaker Nabih Berri, a main leader of the opposition, said that if no president is elected next Saturday, he would continue to "set weekly sessions in January until we elect a president." The move comes amid what the media has termed public muscle-flexing between the US, which has declared its support for the Beirut government, and Syria which along with its ally Iran backs th...