The PollWatch Foundation says vote buying was rampant in the Northeast and the North for yesterday's general election.

Tactics included multiple rounds of cash handouts and the distribution of pre-paid phone cards.

PollWatch also accused the Thai Rak Thai-led caretaker government of violating the election law by abusing state power in presenting new projects in a bid to seek votes.

However, it predicted that the Election Commission will not red-card anyone.

Warin Thiamcharas, secretary of the PollWatch Foundation, said vote buying in this election in the North and the Northeast was more serious than in the 2001 elections. There were several rounds of vote buying in which people were paid 200 baht per head in the first and second rounds and 1,000 baht per head in the third round.

Vote buying, which had been a rare phenomenon in the South, was this time reported in Trang, Nakhon Si Thammarat, Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat but it was not serious, while influencing voters by offering high odds to bet on election results was reported in Nonthaburi and Lampang.

Mr Warin he admitted that the foundation could not name ``red zones'' where vote buying was prevalent because research centres dared not provide it with information as they had in the past.

The PollWatch secretary predicted that the EC would issue no red cards in this general election since it aimed to endorse election results officially by noon today. He also warned elected candidates to beware of possible violence by upset supporters of the losers.

The foundation thought Thai Rak Thai took advantage of state power as the caretaker government to gain favour by launching new projects and organising meetings of state officials to declare its future schemes shortly before election day.

Somchai Srisuthiyakor, a leading member of the PollWatch Foundation, said poll fraud tactics in this election were more sophisticated and left no evidence. He pointed to vote buying with pre-paid phone cards instead of money and the hiring of some poll staff at 100 baht per vote to count votes wrongly.

``This election was quite free but not fair because state power and government officials were used without regard for their neutrality,'' Mr Somchai said.

``Also, no punitive and preventive measures were applied to seek legal action against the cheats to ensure fairness.''

Gen Saiyud Kerdphol, deputy chairman of the foundation, said the vote turnout could exceed 70%, compared to 66% in the previous election, but more votes were believed to be organised and derived from threats and abuse of state power.

From Jan 13 to yesterday, the PollWatch Foundation's complaint centre received 161 complaints from across the country, and forwarded 13 of them to the EC, two to the Senate local administration committee and 12 others to police.

Of these, 84 complaints were about vote buying, 18 were against biased officials, four about the vandalising of campaign posters, 20 about the expressions of opinions which were against the election laws, and nine against biased poll staff and canvassers violating the election law.

The Thai Rak Thai party was the target of 56 complaints, followed by the Mahachon party with 15 complaints, Chart Thai with eight and the Democrat party with five complaints.