Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra remains more popular than opposition leader Abhisit Vejjajiva but her lead has shrunk by nearly five percentage points following the no-confidence debate in Parliament, according to the latest Bangkok Poll.

The Research Centre at Bangkok University surveyed 1,120 respondents in two periods: from Oct 30 to Nov 2 and from Nov 28-30. The aggregate result showed Ms Yingluck was chosen by 51.2% of respondents and former premier Abhisit, the Democrat Party leader, by 33.1%.

In the first survey, taken after the second cabinet reshuffle by her government, the premier's popularity was 52.6% but it dropped to 48.7% after the censure debate. Mr Abhisit rose to 33.7% after the debate, from 32.8% in the first poll.

The gap between Ms Yingluck and Mr Abhisit is now 15 percentage points, compared with 19.8 points a month earlier.

The governing Pheu Thai Party easily survived the censure debate because of its large majority, though the Democrats did present some damning evidence of trouble in the government's expensive rice-pledging programme.

When respondents were asked about the popularity of political parties under the party list system, Pheu Thai received 48.8% support and the Democrats 34.8%. The results were similar when respondents were asked about their choices for constituency representatives, with 46.7% favouring Pheu Thai and 33.4% the Democrat Party.

About 61% of respondents also said they were confident that the Yingluck-led government would be able to stay in power until the end of its full four-year term, while 11.8% believed the government would last longer than two years but would not reach three years.

Speaking on her weekly television programme on Saturday, Ms Yingluck said the no-confidence debate was a good forum to examine the government's administration as it had an opportunity to explain how it was carrying out its policies.

However, there were issues that could not be explained in the limited time available, so the premier urged the ministers responsible to provide more information to the public.

She acknowledged the concerns of opposition parties and said the government would investigate some of the issues raised, while useful recommendations would be noted for future improvement.

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