By Thai Newsroom Reporters
SOME CONTESTANTS FOR senators have allegedly attended secret meetings at hotels where kickbacks in cash have been offered and negotiated, Election Commission Secretary-General Sawaeng Boonmee said today (June 26).
Sawaeng did not name names or tell how many of the tempted electoral riggers there may have been operating in hush-hush fashion but confirmed legal action will certainly be taken against those who may have been evidently involved in any wrongdoings pertaining to the election for 200 senators.
About 20 unnamed hotels have been used as venues where those electoral rigging suspects have allegedly met with banquets and money talks in clandestine, discreet manner, the polling agency’s secretary-general said without elaborating.
Sawaeng was apparently responding to allegations that a range of 300,000 to one million baht in payoff cash had been offered for each of the tempted riggers in exchange for their votes for certain fellow contestants at the orders of unnamed bribe givers.
Nevertheless, the Election Commission secretary-general confirmed if pieces of evidence are eventually found to substantiate the allegations, the polling agency will promptly proceed to the Supreme Court for trial whilst the accused contenders will likely be suspended from performing their senatorial duties, if ever elected, pending court verdicts.
A total of 2,989 candidates who have earlier passed the district and provincial tiers of the triple-tiered election today vied in the national or final tier of the complicated race to parliament to pick a total of 200 senators from among themselves.
CAPTION:
Final round of the triple-tiered senatorial election being held today, June 26, 2024. Top photo: Naewna, Front Page photo: Thai Rath
Insert: Election Commission Secretary-General Sawang Boonmee. Photo: Thai Rath
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