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POLITICS-THAILAND: Uncertainty Over Parliament Reopening

Marwaan Macan-Markar

BANGKOK, Jan 7 2008 (IPS) - Thailand’s election monitoring body is under close scrutiny as the country is gripped by uncertainty over whether the new parliament will be allowed to hold its first session as scheduled on Jan 23.

This hitherto unforeseen hurdle loomed large over the weekend, following a veiled threat made by an outspoken member of the election commission (EC). If protestors critical of the EC’s work demonstrate in front its Bangkok headquarters, the commission will close its office, Sodsri Satayatham, the commissioner, was quoted saying by the Sunday edition of the ‘Bangkok Post’ newspaper.

‘’With officials unable to carry out their tasks, parliament would not be able to convene,’’ she added of the 480-seat legislature, whose members were elected at the first parliamentary elections since the September 2006 coup. The poll was held on Dec. 23.

According to this South-east Asian nation’s law, at least 95 percent of the seats that were up for grabs at the general elections should be approved by the EC for the parliament to open its doors for a new session. But the EC is still well short of endorsing the required 456 seats of parliamentarians that had won the ballot without resorting to illegal means.

By the end of last week, the EC had approved 397 winners, consequently enabling the newly elected legislators to collect their official badges to sit in the Lower House. Under investigation are 83 results, of which 65 are of winners who contested for the People Power Party (PPP), which won the most seats at the December poll, 233.

Sodsri’s threat stemmed from a protest held Friday by over 10,000 PPP supporters in Buri Ram against the EC disqualifying three PPP winners from that eastern province. Among the main complaints the EC is investigating are chargers of alleged vote-buying, a common phenomenon in Thailand since the early 1980s, where candidates pay cash ahead of the polls to rural and urban voters in exchange for their ballots.

At December’s poll, some rural areas voters were given 200 baht (six US) dollars in unmarked ‘’white envelops,’’ while the local party campaigners, or vote canvassers, were give 500 baht (15 US dollars) for every vote secured, a Thai official working for an independent poll monitor, the Asian Network for Free Elections (ANFREL), told IPS. ‘’There was vote buying in Bangkok, too. One party gave 800 bahts (24 dollars) per vote to get 500 votes at one polling station.’’

Yet the EC’s attempt to secure a free and fair poll is being hampered by questions over the commission’s own neutrality on many fronts. Its five members were appointed by the military junta that staged Thailand’s 18th putsch in 2006, driving out of office the twice-elected prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra. The commission’s pro-junta bias was on display ahead of the poll, when it refused to investigate charges made by the PPP that the junta had drafted a plan to undermine the PPP’s election campaign.

During the same period, the EC rejected requests by seasoned election monitors in the country to 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 organisations 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 (P-NET), 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 general and former supreme commander of the Thai armed forces, told IPS. ‘’This is not neutral.’’

The high number of PPP candidates who face disqualification following last month’s poll is also fuelling some criticism of the EC. ‘’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.’’

In fact, as independent election monitors confirmed to IPS, the PPP’s candidates were not the only ones distributing money to poorer voters on the eve of the poll, often described here as ‘’the night of barking dogs’’. In some communities in north-eastern Thailand, Puea Pandin (For the Motherland), a political party that reportedly had the blessings of the junta, allegedly distributed ‘’more money than the other parties to villagers,’’ said one monitor, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

In the northern province of Chiang Rai, there were reports that a senior army officer had allegedly ‘’ordered’’ soldiers to vote for the Chart Thai (Thai Nation) party, PPP’s main rival in the area, revealed ANFREL in a pre-election report. ‘’(But these allegations) do not appear to be vigorously investigated by the police or ECT (elections commission of Thailand).’’

Consequently, questions are being raised by some analysts if the EC has been drawn into a plot being masterminded by the junta and this kingdom’s entrenched elite to prevent the PPP, which has been openly sympathetic to the ousted premier Thaksin, from forming the next government.

During the 15 months since getting rid of Thaksin, who currently lives in exile in London, the junta, the conservative bureaucracy, sections of the media and palace loyalists closed ranks to portray Thaksin as a political villain and prevent him and his supporters reclaiming the country’s political leadership.

The EC was created a decade ago as one of three major independent bodies –- the others being a human rights commission and a counter corruption commission -– to help strength Thailand’s nascent democracy. Prior to that, elections were conducted under the authority of the powerful interior ministry.

The current EC’s credibility has also suffered due to public spats and accusations levelled between members of the commission. Barely a week after the December poll, Somchai Juengprasert, a commissioner, reportedly described a colleague as ‘’a mad person.’’ It was in response to an announcement made earlier by the outspoken Sodsri on the EC’s plans to investigate election malpractice.