Votes were cast in a peaceful atmosphere in most of the country, but nine people were injured by bombs at polling stations in the troubled deep south, where the Government is struggling against a two-year-old Islamic insurgency.

An overwhelming victory for Mr Thaksin’s Thai Rak Thai (Thais Love Thais) party was inevitable, since the three main opposition parties boycotted the election. The crucial question was whether they could prevent Mr Thaksin being re-elected by parliament.

In that they seem to have succeeded. In one constituency there were no candidates to vote for after all five were disqualified by the Election Commission. Other constituencies are likely to fail to return an MP because of a high number of abstentions. That means parliament will not reach the 500-seat quorum necessary to elect a Prime Minister.

The country now faces months of by-elections, legal challenges, complicated constitutional arguments and further anti-Thaksin demonstrations of the kind that have brought as many as 100,000 people on to the streets of Bangkok.

Mr Thaksin has promised to step down in the unlikely event that he gains less than half of votes cast. Yesterday both he and Thailand’s national police chief said that the street protests should end. “We should return to the rule of law,” Police General General Kowit Watana said. “Police have been lenient for a very long time.”

But Chamlong Srimuang, a former general and now a Buddhist ascetic, insisted that there would be no compromise by his People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD), a coalition of religious and civil rights groups. “I want to reaffirm that, after the election, we will stage protracted protests until the Prime Minister resigns,” he said as he voted.

Military coups, angry demonstrations and their violent repression have been a feature of Thailand’s political history. But even by Thai standards it was an unprecedented day, marked by expression of bitter divisions. Mr Thaksin’s opponents, most of them in Bangkok and the Muslim south, regard him as a corrupt opportunist who has done immense harm to the country’s democratic institutions. His supporters consider him to be the saviour of Thailand’s poor and the first Prime Minister to have a true understanding of business.

As he voted at Pimonwit High School in suburban Bangkok, Mr Thaksin was mobbed by women offering flowers and shouting, “We love you, Prime Minister.”

Elsewhere, a distinguished political scientist named Chaiyan Chaiyaporn was arrested after publicly ripping up his ballot paper as a protest against Mr Thaksin’s decision to hold the election. Another academic used his blood to mark the box labelled “No Vote” — the recommended choice of the anti-Thaksin movement.

Out of 400 constituencies which directly return MPs, 278 had only a single candidate, that of Thai Rak Thai. If politicians in those seats gain less than 20 per cent of votes cast they will fail to secure a seat.

But the most extreme case was that of Nonthanaburi Constituency Number 3, where the only candidate not already disqualified was barred from running on Friday because she did not vote in the last election.

Voters were presented with one ballot paper — to choose a party for the 100 seats allocated by proportional representation — but the constituency itself will not return an MP, mean-ing that the election will almost certainly have to be repeated in a few weeks.

“I think the situation after this election will be as messy as before,” said Ponchalgad Ngamukos, 26, as he left the polling booth. “It will screw up the country.”

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