2008 Bangkok gubernatorial election

2008 Bangkok gubernatorial election

← 2004 5 October 2008 2009 →
Turnout54.18%
 
Apirak kosayothin1.jpg
ประภัสร์ จงสงวน.png
Candidate Apirak Kosayothin Prapas Chongsa-nguan
Party Democrat People's Power
Popular vote 991,018 543,488
Percentage 45.93% 25.19%

 
Chuwit Kamolvisit cropped 2010.jpg
Candidate Chuwit Kamolvisit Kriengsak Chareonwongsak
Party Independent Independent
Popular vote 340,616 260,051
Percentage 15.79% 12.05%

Gubernatorial election results map. Blue denotes districts won by Apirak

Governor before election

Apirak Kosayothin
Democrat

Elected Governor

Apirak Kosayothin
Democrat

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.

Sixteen candidates contested the election. 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 sixth elected governor of Bangkok, 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]

  1. ^ AFP 2008.