Nakhon Phonlookin won the right to take over his uncle’s recently vacated Pattaya City Council seat while party member Morakot Noohuang grabbed the empty Zone 3 post amid extremely low turnout in this month’s city elections.
Only 19 percent of Pattaya’s eligible voters turned out for the special zones 2 and 3 elections July 10. Zone 2 winner Nakhon of the We Love Pattaya Party takes over for uncle Adison Phonlookin, who retired in May to run for parliament. Morakot, also of We Love Pattaya, replaces another Phonlookin – Wittaya – who also resigned this spring in hopes of becoming an MP.
Nakhon Phonlookin (left) and Morakot Noohuang (2nd left) celebrate their wins with their families and team supporters.
Mayor Itthiphol Kunplome, who lives in Zone 3, was one of the relative few who came out to vote, casting his ballot at Pattaya School No. 5 before touring other polling locations. Others, perhaps weary from elections the previous two weekends, either stayed home or didn’t know about the city polls.
Nakhon won his seat with 2,460 votes compared with just 238 votes for independent candidate Bunma Fangrak and 158 for independent Wachirawit Khunpolkarnkha.
Despite the low turnout, the atmosphere was lively during the vote counting.
Morakot was in a much closer race, but won with 1,599 votes to 1,409 for Dilok Thongnak and 152 for Supaleuk Chantes.
In all, just 6,468 of 33,168 possible ballots were cast. The “no” protest vote, cast by those fed up with all politicians, finished with 6.3 percent of the vote.
