By Riyaz ul Khaliq
ANKARA (AA) – Thailand's troubled southern region witnessed peaceful polls in last week's general election held after an eight-year hiatus, according to local media reports.
The region, dominated by Muslims mostly of Malay descent, has been marred by years of insurgency.
However, the region witnessed a higher voter turnout as insurgent groups urged locals to vote for pro-democracy parties.
According to BenarNews, 1.3 million votes were cast in the heavily militarized region.
“Sunday’s vote took place against the backdrop of Malaysia-brokered peace talks between the Thai military government and MARA Patani, a panel representing various southern rebel groups and factions in the negotiations. The talks have lasted nearly four years but led to no breakthrough,” Benarnews said.
The unofficial results of polls held for the first time since a 2014 military coup last Sunday witnessed anti-junta Pheu Thai Party wining 137 seats in a-500 member parliament, while the military-backed Phalang Pracharat party won 97 seats.
In the south, a pan-Muslim Prachachart party won six out of 13 parliamentary seats, according to unofficial results. The party has joined a seven-party anti-military alliance.
Together they have a tally of 255 seats in the parliament which gives them a majority in the lower house. However, it remains to be seen whether military-appointed senate (upper house) will support the coalition.
The Democrat Party, one of the oldest political party of the nation which dominated the south in the 2011 general elections, won only two seats in Sunday’s polls.
- Muslim prime minister candidate
The BRN, or Barisan Revolusi Nasional (the National Revolutionary Front), is the largest confederation of various armed groups in the southern Thailand.
Wan Muhamad Noor Matha, who is popular as Wan Noor, is the first Thai Muslim to serve in Thailand’s parliament and was running as Prachachart’s prime ministerial candidate in Sunday's elections.
He lead a coalition of southern Muslim politicians — the Wadah Group — in the past.
“I believe I could win 20 seats in this election with the Prachachart party. Pro-democracy parties nationwide will win and form a coalition,” the 74-year-old party leader told BenarNews before casting his ballot at a polling site in his home province of Yala.
In run up to the elections, Wan Noor said that his party was “truly multicultural”. “Prachachat was a political party for people of all races and religions”.
“Our party supports more public participation and consultation so people can determine their own futures. We will also give autonomy to local administrations,” he told a public meeting in Songkhla province.
Reports say that about 7,000 people have lost their lives in the troubled region due to decades-old rebellion which got revived in 2004.
In reference to Thailand’s trouble in the southern region, Thailand’s Ambassador to Turkey Phantipha Iamsudha Ekarohit at an ASEAN envoys' event in the Turkish capital Ankara, had said: “We study different cases across the world and we learn… [but] we are a different country with a different culture and politics and we have to see what is applicable and useful to us.”
She was explaining whether Bangkok would take a lesson from Manila on resolving issues in Thailand’s troubled southern region.
Last month, the Philippine government granted regional autonomy to ethnic Moro Muslims who have formed an independent administration to run affairs in the Moro-dominated region.
