Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra said Monday that his Thai Rak Thai (TRT) party had mustered some 57 percent of the popular votes in Sunday's parliamentary election, based on estimates of unofficial results.

Thaksin said in a TV interview that the TRT had won 16 million of the total 28 million ballots cast in Sunday's polling. And "no votes" plus votes for other parties were altogether 10 million.

"Thai Rak Thai today received about 60 percent of the vote. If you include the invalid ballots, it's about 57-42," he said.

It was his first major remarks on Sunday's election, portrayed as a virtual national referendum on his beleagued leadership.

Thaksin had pledged to step down if he won less than half of the votes in the snap election.

He proposed setting up a reconciliation committee to unlock political chaos in which several groups of people holding opinions on the current situation should be involved.

"Members of the committee could be picked up from several sectors of the society, including judges and academics," said Thaksin, hoping that everyone would put aside differences of opinions and think for the sake of the country.

Earlier, iTV's own tally indicated that TRT had only received 44.4 percent of the popular votes nationwide with 85 percent counted, or 28,084,686 ballots.

Comprehensive voting results have not yet been released by the Election Commission (EC).

However, it has announced that by-elections have to be held in 38 of 400 constituencies after ruling party candidates failed to reach the required 20 percent votes in uncontested constituencies.

The boycott from three main opposition parties had transformed the polling into a one-party race in 278 parliamentary constituencies. All seats of the 500-member House of Representatives have to be filled before a new government is formed.

Thaksin said that after formation of the new cabinet, he planned to set up a committee in charge of the constitutional reform.

TRT party won all of the 36 seats in Bangkok, though it pocketed only 46 percent of the votes, compared to 50 percent "abstention" ballots.

The EC said turnout of this year's general election was about 60 percent, a decline from the 72 percent in 2005.

The anti-Thaksin campaign swelled in February after Thaksin's family sold its controlling stake in telecom giant Shin Corp. to a Singapore state-owned investment company for 1.9 billion US dollars.

Thaksin called the snap elections in a bid to defuse the crisis but the opposition is unlikely to bow to the election results.

Maj-Gen. Chamlong Srimuang, Thaksin's former mentor and co-leader of PAD, has threatened to hold persistent rallies, forcing the premier to step down. Analysts predict the political stalemate would drag on as long as Thaksin remains in office, no matter what outcome of the election.

Editor: Yan