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| Turnout | 54.18% | |||||||||||||||
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 Gubernatorial election results map. Blue denotes districts won by Kosayothin | ||||||||||||||||
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The eighth gubernatorial election for the city of Bangkok, Thailand, was held on 5 October 2008. The election was won by the incumbent Governor Apirak Kosayothin, placing him in his second consecutive four-year term in office, winning 45.93 percent of the vote. Of a total of 4,087,329 eligible voters, 2,214,320 voted, giving a turnout rate of 54.18 percent, lower than the 70 percent target expected by the Election Committee.
A governor is, in most cases, a public official with the power to govern the executive branch of a non-sovereign or sub-national level of government, ranking under the head of state. In federations, governor may be the title of a politician who governs a constituent state and may be either appointed or elected. The power of the individual governor can vary dramatically between political systems, with some governors having only nominal or largely ceremonial power, while others having a complete control over the entire government.
An election is a formal group decision-making process by which a population chooses an individual to hold public office. Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative democracy has operated since the 17th century. Elections may fill offices in the legislature, sometimes in the executive and judiciary, and for regional and local government. This process is also used in many other private and business organizations, from clubs to voluntary associations and corporations.
Bangkok is the capital and most populous city of Thailand. It is known in Thai as Krung Thep Maha Nakhon or simply Krung Thep. The city occupies 1,568.7 square kilometres (605.7 sq mi) in the Chao Phraya River delta in central Thailand, and has a population of over eight million, or 12.6 percent of the country's population. Over fourteen million people lived within the surrounding Bangkok Metropolitan Region at the 2010 census, making Bangkok the nation's primate city, significantly dwarfing Thailand's other urban centres in terms of importance.
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Sixteen candidates contested the election. Mr Apirak, candidate for the opposition Democrat Party, was seen as the favourite. Other candidates included Chuwit Kamolvisit, a former massage parlour businessman who also ran in the 2004 election, Prapas Chongsa-nguan, former governor of the Mass Rapid Transit Authority of Thailand and candidate for the People's Power Party, Kriengsak Chareonwongsak, an academic and professor in business administration, and Leena Jangjanja, a businesswoman and lawyer who ran in the previous election and the 2006 senate election.
The Democrat Party is a Thai political party. The oldest party in Thailand, it was founded as a conservative and royalist party, and now upholds a conservative-liberal and classically liberal pro-market position.
Chuwit Kamolvisit is a controversial Thai politician who was once the country's biggest massage parlour owner, known as the "tub tycoon". After an arrest in 2003, he publicly claimed that he paid large bribes to many Thai police officers. He then sold some of his massage parlors, formed his own political party and unsuccessfully ran for Bangkok governor in August 2004. In 2005 he was elected for a four-year term to the Thai House of Representatives, but in 2006 the Constitutional Court removed him from parliament. In October 2008 he again ran for governor of Bangkok as an independent but was not elected. In the July 2011 general election his party won four seats in the House of Representatives. He used the pseudonym Davis Kamol on occasion.
The Mass Rapid Transit Authority of Thailand is a government agency under the Ministry of Transport of Thailand. It is responsible the operation of rapid transit systems in the Bangkok Metropolitan Region and including other provinces as defined by the royal decree. The MRTA was founded in 1992 and underwent restructuring in 2000. The MRTA oversees the operation of the BTS outside Bangkok areas and MRT, which consists of the operational Blue Line and Purple Line. Other systems, including the Airport Rail Link, are owned and operated by other agencies.
The sixth elected governor of Bangkok, Mr Apirak is the second to be elected to a second term, after Chamlong Srimuang, governor from 1985–1992, who was incidentally arrested at a polling station early on the election day, on charges of insurrection due to his role as leader of the People's Alliance for Democracy, a group which has staged protests and occupied Government House since August. [1]
Chamlong Srimuang is a Thai activist and former politician. A former general, he was a leader of the "Young Turks" military clique, founded and led the Palang Dharma Party, served for six years as governor of Bangkok, led the anti-military uprising of May 1992, and is a prominent member of the People's Alliance for Democracy, a group strongly opposed to former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra. Chamlong had supported the military junta that overthrew Thaksin in a coup. A devout Buddhist and follower of the Santi Asoke sect, he is now celibate, a vegetarian, and claims to have no worldly possessions. Chamlong Srimuang received the Ramon Magsaysay Award in the category of Government Service in 1992.
The People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) also called the National Liberation Alliance - กลุ่มพันธมิตรกู้ชาติ, Klum Phanthamit Ku Chat, Thai Patriots Network or more commonly the Yellow Shirts - เสื้อเหลือง, Suea Lueang - is a Thai political movement and pressure group. It was originally a coalition of protesters against Thaksin Shinawatra, the former Prime Minister of Thailand. Its leaders included media-mogul Sondhi Limthongkul and Major General Chamlong Srimuang. The PAD was a chief player in the Thailand political crisis of 2005 to 2006, the 2008 crisis, and the Cambodian–Thai border stand-off. Its membership consisted mainly of ultra-royalist middle-class and working-class Bangkok residents and anti-Thaksin Southerners, supported by some factions of the Thai Army, some leaders of Democrat Party, and the members of the state-enterprise labor unions.
Beginning in 2008, there was worsening conflict between the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) and the People's Power Party (PPP) governments of Prime Ministers Samak Sundaravej and Somchai Wongsawat. It was a continuation of the 2005–2006 political crisis, when PAD protested against the Thai Rak Thai (TRT) party government of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. PAD followers usually dressed in yellow, yellow being the royal color of King Bhumibol Adulyadej, and were called "yellow shirts". UDD followers, known as supporters of the deposed prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, dressed in red and were widely called "red shirts".
