By Xinhua,
Bangkok : The Thai parliament kicked off a voting to elect the country’s new prime minister Wednesday morning, as deputy leader of People Power Party (PPP) and acting Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat is set to sail through.
The voting session in the House of Representatives convened at 9:30 a.m. (0230 GMT) as scheduled. Only 370 members of parliament in the House, out of a total 470, attended the session, but it hasmet a the 50-percent quorum to valify the proceedings and results.
Somchai Wongsawat, the candidate backed by the PPP and the other five coalition parties in the caretaker government, is expected to become the 26th prime minister, succeeding Samak Sundaravej, who was disqualified by as premier by a Constitutional Court verdict on Sept. 9, which found him in breach of the charter by hosting TV cooking shows while in office.
The House voting was postponed to Wednesday from last Friday after fractions of PPP, and the other smaller five coalition parties voiced opposition to the PPP’s earlier decision to reinstall disqualified Premier Sundaravej as prime minister. The refusal of a large number of MPs to attend the voting session led to a lack of quorum in the House, hence the postponement.
Somchai, as first deputy prime minister, was then appointed as acting premier to head the caretaker government.
The sole opposition Democrat Party, which held 164 seats in the House, has nominated its party leader Abhisit Vejjajiva for the premiership.