Bangkok: Thais were voting on Sunday in the country’s first elections for the upper house of Parliament since a 2006 military coup ousted former PM Thaksin Shinawatra.

According to Thai media turn out was at 50-60 percent, lower that the 70 percent the Election Commission had anticipated. Unofficial results are expected to be announced late on Sunday.

Seventy-six senators – one from each of the country’s provinces – will be elected. They will join 74 others already appointed by a committee made up of judges, the Election Commission and heads of various independent agencies.

Voting has been largely peaceful, but a bombing near a polling station in the country’s southern Muslim-majority province injured three soldiers.