The party allied to former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has claimed victory in elections in Thailand.
The win is an apparent rejection of the coup which forced out the prime minister in 2006.
With 93% of votes counted, the People Power Party is heading for 228 seats in the 480-member parliament and said it would form a coalition government.
PPP leader Samak Sundaravej said Mr Thaksin had phoned from exile to congratulate him on the result.
'It is a victory for this country,' Mr Samak told a news conference, adding that he would certainly be prime minister.
The victory poses a challenge to the military and the royalist establishment, whom the Thaksin camp says was the brains behind the bloodless coup.
Although it was feared that a strong PPP showing in the election could trigger another coup, it is thought the army-appointed government is more likely to try first to stymie the PPP by disqualifying candidates for vote fraud.
The Election Commission has said it received more than 750 complaints, but was taking only 157 of them seriously. It is not clear how many of these could lead to disqualifications.
Last year's coup was the 18th in 75 years of on-off democracy in Thailand and today's vote has underscored the deep political divisions between the capital and the rural masses who were the primary beneficiaries of Mr Thaksin's populist policies.
