Chuwit Kamolvisit is delighted that he and six other Chart Thai party-list candidates are likely to win House seats, but says he will not vote for Thai Rak Thai leader Thaksin Shinawatra to become prime minister.

After days of uncertainty, Mr Chuwit was unable to hide his jubilation yesterday after the Election Commission announced Chart Thai would get a share of the 100 party-list seats.

``In parliament, there must be ordinary people like myself expressing their opinions,'' Mr Chuwit said.

``I am not like other politicians who mostly dare not speak out or do whatever they are told by their parties. I think I will do a better job than they do in parliament.

``This is because I entered politics with a strong desire to work, and not to sleep or search through pornographic websites while sitting in parliament,'' he said.

The massage parlour tycoon insisted he would not support Mr Thaksin for prime minister although Chart Thai leader Banharn Silpa-archa said the party would do so. He believed that voting for a prime minister was an individual's right.

As a member of the opposition bloc, he would perform his duties diligently, unlike many others who might try to make friends out of their opponents.

On Mr Thaksin's offer to lend the opposition some MPs to enable it to carry out its work of monitoring the government, Mr Chuwit said this was an insulting comment from a rich man who believed everything could be bought or lent out.

The opposition parties are expected to finish up short of the minimum 125 MPs required to file a censure motion against the new government.

The Election Commission (EC) yesterday said that while the total number of party-list votes was not yet known, Thai Rak Thai stood a good chance of having 68 list MPs, the Democrats 25 and Chart Thai seven.

Secretary-general Ekkachai Varunprapa said they had received a tally of party-list votes from 397 of the 400 constituencies.

About 28 million votes were cast for all political parties. Seventeen parties were excluded after winning less than 5% of the vote.

The main winners were Thai Rak Thai, the Democrats and Chart Thai which together won about 26 million votes.

The tally was not final because the commission had to wait for the results from three constituencies _ one each in Trang, Satun and Nakhon Ratchasima _ where new polls were called after problems were encountered on Sunday.

The nationwide voter turnout on Sunday was about 72.3%. The province with the best turnout of voters was not Phuket, as had been reported, but Lamphun with 86.7%.

In the three troubled provinces of Narathiwat, Pattani and Yala turnout was 76.1%, 73% and 75.1%.