By Thai Newsroom Reporters
GOVERNMENT MPs, OPPOSITION MPs and senators today (Feb.24) cast overwhelming votes to approve varied drafts of an organic law of the constitution pertaining to a future election of MPs.
In today’s joint House/Senate meeting, the lawmakers approved in principle the four different drafts of the organic law and set up a 49-member, extraordinary committee to incorporate and scrutinise them before returning them to parliament for final approval.
During the joint session, Pheu Thai and Move Forward MPs recommended that the electoral numeral for individual, constituency-based contestants be the same as that for collective, party-listed candidates nationwide for the conveniences of the voters and cost-saving purposes.
The opposition MPs remarked if the electoral numeral for a constituency-based candidate was different from that for a party-listed one, the voters would be unnecessarily confused when they go to the polls.
But Palang Pracharath MPs contended that the people nationwide could practically tell a constituency-based candidate from a party-listed one though they may be given different electoral numerals.
According to amended sections of the constitution to which the organic law is yet to comply, the future election of MPs will provide two ballots for each voter to tick on with one for an individual, constituency-based candidate and the other for a number of party-listed candidates.
The nationwide race to parliament will make 400 constituency-based MPs and 100 party-listed MPs.
CAPTIONS:
Top: A joint House/Senate meeting at Parliament. Photo: Matichon
Home Page: A word cloud featuring “vote”. Image by www.scootergenius.com shared by Kevin Smith (CC BY 2.0)
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