by Anusak Konglang
BANGKOK, Feb 6 (AFP) - Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra's Thai Rak Thai party was on course to win a massive victory in Sunday's polls, securing 399 out of 500 parliamentary seats, according to television exit polls.
The projected win, which would hand Thaksin an unprecedented second term, was far larger than forecasts, the most recent of which had predicted the billionaire telecom tycoon's party would win 349 seats, up from the 320 it held in the outgoing parliament.
The leading opposition Democrat Party was set to take 80 seats, Chart Thai 20, and the newly formed Mahachon party one seat, according to the projections.
Even if all the opposition parties grouped together, they would not have enough seats to censure Thanksin's government in parliament.
In the capital, Thaksin's party grabbed 35 out of 37 constituencies, but in the south, where the leading opposition Democrat Party is traditionally dominant, it scooped just nine seats compared to their 45.
Polls closed at 3:00 pm (0800 GMT), with television stations defying an official ban and releasing exit polls. Voting ran smoothly across the kingdom's 400 constituencies during the seven hours of balloting.
Thaksin, who drove himself and his 18-year-old daughter Paetongtarn to cast their votes early in the day at a school in Bangkok's outlying Bangpald neighborhood, predicted turnout would be 70 percent.
"Democracy is about diversity of opinion. We want to see people come out to show their power in a democratic way," he told reporters.
The win easily exceeds Thaksin's goal of controlling 350 seats in the lower House of Representatives, handing him Thailand's first-ever single party government under a democracy.
He said earlier in the day that such a win would "be better, because we have a strategy, we have a plan."
The Democrat Party had already conceded it could not defeat Thaksin and had asked voters only for enough seats to censure his government in parliament.
Party chief Banyat Bantadtan complained that the incidence of vote buying had doubled from the last election.
"There was a huge vote-buying effort last night" in southern provinces, which are Democrat strongholds, Banyat told Thai television after voting in the southern town of Surat Thani.
Vote buying has a long tradition in Thailand -- a survey released Saturday said the average rate this year was 513 baht (13 dollars) per ballot. Officials had banned the use of mobile phone cameras in voting booths.
Thailand has also banned alcohol sales on election day until midnight.
With so many seats under Thai Rak Thai's belt, the opposition will be unable to launch any censure motion against Thaksin or his party.
Critics who have labelled the prime minister as increasingly authoritarian said such a margin of victory would hand him too much power.
The kingdom's 44 million eligible voters cast their ballots six weeks after December's tsunami devastated six southern provinces, killing nearly 5,400 people.
In the hardest-hit province of Phang Nga, the army drove voters left homeless by the tsunami from refugee camps to ballot boxes, while substitute polling stations were found for two temples used as makeshift morgues.
In the four southernmost provinces, where Thaksin has battled Islamic insurgents since January 2004, heavily armed forces patrolled the streets as voters steadily trickled into polls.
No violence was reported in the region which has seen almost daily killings, although an intact grenade was found outside Democrat offices in the northern province of Chiang Mai, police said.
Thaksin's military crackdown on the Islamic insurgency, which has left more than 580 dead, has drawn sharp criticism.
The prospect of an even more powerful premier has raised alarm among groups such as Human Rights Watch, which considers Thailand "a country of high concern."
In a country where every previous elected government has fallen either to military coups or political squabbling, Thaksin's is the first to survive a full four-year term.
The mogul has largely delivered on his promises to revive Thailand's fortunes after the 1997 Asian financial crisis and has proved a popular leader.
