Thailand's outgoing Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva has resigned as leader of the Democrat Party, which roundly lost the country's hotly contested general election last weekend.

"I've decided to resign because I could not lead my party to victory in the election," Abhisit said in a national television broadcast.

Senior Democrat Party members will meet to select a new party leader within 90 days, as the law requires, he said.

His resignation marks the end of his controversial leadership that divided the country and the beginning of another leadership that looks set to be just as controversial.

The Democrat Party was crushed by its main rival the Pheu Thai Party, led by the neophyte politician Yingluck Shinawatra, 44. She is the sister of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

Critics of Yingluck -- Thailand's first female prime minister -- say real government power will lie in Dubai where her brother lives in self-imposed exile.

Thaksin, 61, was ousted in a military coup in 2006 and soon after received a 2-year prison sentence for tax fraud. He fled in 2008 rather than serve his sentence, leaving an estimated $2 billion in frozen assets.

He is wanted most recently for allegedly helping organize the major street protests that crippled parts of central Bangkok last year from February to May. The demonstrations left 90 people dead and some 2,000 injured.

He denies all charges against him and said he called for peace by the protesters during the demonstrations.

Yingluck will want to establish her own leadership credentials, her supporters said.

Yingluck, who gained a master's degree in political science from Kentucky State University in 1990 and is a successful businesswoman but has little political experience.

She has worked in the family businesses, including Shinawatra Directories, and was appointed managing director of the telecommunications company AIS, then owned by the Shinawatra family, in 2002.

She later became a director of SC Asset, the Shinawatra family property development company. She sold her AIS shares at a huge profit around the end of 2005.

Her most recent job was as company secretary of Thaicom Foundation.

She is the wife of Anusorn Amornchat, managing director of M Link Asia Corp., a distributor of telecommunication equipment and cellphones. But they haven't registered their marriage, which has produced one son, a report in the Bangkok Post newspaper said.

Yingluck starts off with a solid power base that is likely to hold around 60 percent of the seats in the House of Representatives.

The unofficial voter turnout was nearly 66 percent, Election Commission Secretary-General Suthipol Thaweechaikarn said. There were minor security issues surrounding polling stations including a shootout at on station in the early hours of the morning.

The commission said it will investigate all allegations of bullying of voters and suspicious incidents inside polling stations.

To bolster her already large number of seats, Yingluck announced the cementing of a coalition with four other parties, raising the number of government seats to 299 out of 500.

Into the government come 19 members of the Chartthaipattana Party, seven of Chart Thai Pattana Puea Pandin, seven from of Palang Chon and one from Mahachon.

Yingluck said the most urgent task for her administration to forge national reconciliation and she supports the Truth for Reconciliation Committee, appointed by the outgoing Democrat government. It will continue to operate alongside an independent working group to be set by the new government, the Bangkok Post reported.

The second priority is preparations for the celebration of the Thai king's 84th birthday n December.

Her government pledged to improve the economy, rebuild morale and good governance in the bureaucracy, get rid of corruption and ensure all political parties are subject to public scrutiny.

For the moment, the military is content with the election result. Outgoing Defense Minister Gen. Prawit Wongsuwan said he had spoken to army leaders and they accept the outcome, a report by the BBC said. The military has "never entertained any idea of doing anything that will damage the country," Wongsuwan said.

Yingluck's clear majority gives her a moral authority, as well as practical one, to push through reforming legislation.

But the fly in the ointment could be the amount of influence, if any, her exiled brother Thaksin exercises in the affairs of government. How much Thaksin interference the military is willing to tolerate remains to be seen, Chris Baker, a Thai resident and political analyst told the BBC.

"The military ran politics in Thailand for half a century from 1932. During that time they put around the ideology that they really had a right to rule because they were a very special institution and had a special relationship with the monarchy," he said.

Many in the Thai military claim to have a right to intervention "to correct if things go wrong and in particular to control politicians and political corruption."

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