Bangkok, Thailand:: Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra said Monday he is open to all options after early results showed a large protest vote in an election on Sunday that was boycotted by the opposition.
Abstentions -- sparked by a "vote for no vote" campaign -- were strongest in the capital and in the south, but support remained high for Thaksin in the populous north and northeast of the country, where social and economic welfare programs have benefited rural constituents .
Candidates from Thaksin's Thai Love Thai party were unopposed in 278 of 400 lower house seats.
The three parliamentary opposition parties did not field candidates and urged voters to protest the election by ticking the box on their ballots signifying an abstention, The Associated Press reported.
"If the media give me an option that could reconcile all sides, I don't necessarily need to be the prime minister," Thaksin was quoted as saying Monday by Reuters news agency. "But this doesn't mean that I will continue to be or I won't be the prime minister," he said.
Observers say Sunday's boycott means Thailand may face a possible period of constitutional chaos because of the inevitability of some empty seats in parliament.
In some of the unopposed seats, Thai Love Thai candidates will struggle to win the minimum 20 percent of eligible votes needed to secure victory, according to Reuters.
Voter turnout across the country was low at 60 percent, according to the Interior Ministry, CNN correspondent Ram Ramgopal reported from Bangkok.
Abhisit Vejjajiva, head of the Democrat Party, said the strong abstention vote showed that Thaksin did not have the support of the people, AP reported.
"There are a lot of people who voted 'No Vote' this time," Abhisit said. "It shows that most people think this election is not the answer to the problem right now. And that's the reason the Democrat Party didn't join the election in the first place."
Thaksin had called the lower house election three years early to reassert his mandate after weeks of growing street protests in Bangkok demanding his resignation. His opponents have accused the prime minister -- a billionaire former telecommunications tycoon -- of corruption and abuse of power.
Thaksin's party said it was disappointed by the protest vote.
"We probably have to take it into consideration for our next step," said Suranand Vejjajiva, a member of Thaksin's Cabinet, AP reported.
Thaksin had promised to step down if his party received less than 50 percent of the vote, an unlikely outcome given his strong support in the north, AP reported.
Because of the boycott by the key opposition parties, Thaksin's Thai Love Thai could be the only party to hold seats in the new legislature.
But if some seats are vacant due to minimum turnout requirements, that will raise constitutional questions about whether Thaksin can form a government without another round of by-elections, AP reported.
Final results are expected late on Monday, the Election Commission said.
Sunday's voting was largely peaceful, although bombs wounded four security men after polls closed in the far south, where more than 1,100 people have been killed in two years of separatist violence.
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