Thai poll results thrown into
doubt By Marwaan Macan-Markar
BANGKOK - Thailand's election monitoring
body is under scrutiny as the country is gripped
by uncertainty over last month's general election
result and whether the new Parliament will be able
to hold its first session as constitutionally
required on January 23.
According to Thai
law, at least 95% of the 480 seats that were up
for grabs at the polls must be approved by the
Election Commission (EC) for the new parliament to
convene. But the EC is still well short of
endorsing the required 456 parliamentary
seats as it conducts
investigations into electoral fraud allegations.
By the end of last week, the EC had
approved only 397 winners of the total 480
parliamentary seats. Of the 83 seats now under
investigation, 65 were winners who contested for
the People's Power Party (PPP), the reincarnation
of ousted premier Thaksin Shinawatra's disbanded
Thai Rak Thai party.
PPP won the most
seats at last month's poll, the first since the
September 2006 military takeover, by notching 233
seats, just short of an outright majority. The PPP
outpaced the runner-up Democrat Party, which won
165 seats. Crucially, neither party won enough
votes to form a government unilaterally, though at
first blush it appeared the PPP had the inside
track to leading a coalition.
Now, with
the EC's recent announcement of its ongoing
investigations, speculation is swirling over which
party will be able to woo a handful of small- and
medium-sized parties into a coalition. This
hitherto unforeseen hurdle to forming the next
government loomed particularly large over the
weekend, following a veiled threat made by an
outspoken EC member.
If protestors
critical of the EC's work demonstrated in front
its Bangkok headquarters, the commission would
close its office and parliament would not be able
to convene, according to commissioner Sodsri
Satayatham, who was quoted saying as much in the
local press. Sodsri's threat stemmed from a
protest held on Friday by over 10,000 PPP
supporters in Buriram province against the EC's
decision to disqualify three PPP winners from that
eastern province. The influential Council of
State, a legal advisory body, sided with the EC's
decision on Monday.
Among the main
complaints the EC has taken under investigation
are charges of alleged vote-buying, a widespread
phenomenon in Thailand since the early 1980s,
where candidates pay cash to voters ahead of the
polls in exchange for their ballots.
At
December's poll, some rural voters were given 200
baht (US$6) in unmarked "white envelopes", while
the local party campaigners, or vote canvassers,
were given 500 baht for every vote secured, a Thai
official working for an independent poll monitor,
the Asian Network for Free Elections (ANFREL),
told Inter Press Service (IPS).
"There was
vote-buying in Bangkok, too. One party gave 800
baht per vote to get 500 votes at one polling
station," the official claimed.
Questionable neutrality Still,
the EC's attempt to secure a free and fair poll is
being hampered by questions over the commission's
own neutrality. Critics note that its five members
were appointed by the military junta that staged
the 2006 coup and later appointed a civilian
government. The commission's pro-junta bias was
according to some critics put on display ahead of
the election when it refused to investigate
charges lodged by the PPP that the junta had
drafted a covert plan to undermine its campaign.
The EC threw out the complaint on the basis that
the plan was never implemented.
During the
same period, the EC also rejected requests by
experienced, independent election monitors to help
ensure a climate of neutrality at all levels of
the polling process. "At a meeting with the
elections commission, we requested that there
should be neutral organizations and observers to
ensure that the election will be free and fair,"
said Saiyud Kerdphol, secretary-general of the
People's Network for Elections in Thailand, a
local non-governmental group. "But the commission
rejected this proposal."
"Village chiefs,
who are very politically involved at the local
level, and officials from the ministry of the
interior were used to monitor work at the polling
stations," Saiyud, a retired army general and
former supreme commander of the Thai armed forces,
told IPS. "This is not neutral."
The
proportionately high number of PPP candidates who
face disqualification following last month's poll
is also fueling criticism. "During the previous
elections, the number of election fraud cases the
EC investigated was often in proportion to the
number of seats each party won. It looked fair to
all parties," said Gotham Arya, a former member of
the EC.
"But this time there are large
number of PPP seats being investigated and less so
for the other parties. This lack of proportion is
a serious issue of concern."
According to
independent election monitors who spoke with IPS,
PPP candidates were not the only ones distributing
money to poor voters before the poll. In some
areas of northeastern Thailand, Puea Pandin, a
political party that reportedly had the junta's
behind-the-scenes support, though party executives
have repeatedly denied any affiliation, allegedly
distributed "more money than the other parties to
villagers", contended one monitor, who spoke on
condition of anonymity.
In the northern
province of Chiang Rai, a senior army officer had
allegedly "ordered" soldiers to vote for the Chart
Thai party, PPP's main rival in the area,
according to a pre-election ANFREL report. "[These
allegations] do not appear to be vigorously
investigated by the police or [EC]," according to
the report.
Some political analysts now
wonder if the EC has been drawn into a junta plot
to prevent the PPP, which has been openly promised
to restore Thaksin and 110 of his former party's
top executives political rights, from forming the
next government. During the 15 months since
toppling Thaksin, who currently lives in exile in
London, the junta, the conservative bureaucracy
and palace loyalists have closed ranks to prevent
the ousted premier's return to politics.
Through constitutional reforms aimed at
promoting democracy, the EC was created a decade
ago as one of three new major independent bodies -
the other two being the national human rights
commission and the national counter-corruption
commission. Prior to that, elections were held
under the authority of the powerful, and often
politicized, interior ministry. However, the EC's
impartiality first came under fire after Thaksin
appointed perceived close associates to the body
ahead of the 2005 polls, which his party handily
won.
The current EC's legitimacy has also
suffered because its five members were appointed
by the military government, as well as due to
public spats and accusations leveled between the
commission's members. Barely a week after the
December poll, commissioner Somchai Juengprasert
described without explaining an unidentified EC
colleague as "a mad person". Somchai, who is in
charge of investigations, last week voiced his
desire to leave the body and return to his
previous work as a judge.
(Inter Press
Service with editing by Asia Times
Online)
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