By Thai Newsroom Reporters
AN OFFICIAL RATIFICATION of all 200 senators-designate will likely be postponed for a period of time from tomorrow (July 3) amidst allegations of vote-rigging and other irregularities.
The Election Commission will likely put off the official ratification of the total 200 senators-designate plus 100 others in reserve earlier scheduled for tomorrow, an official of the polling agency said today.
Many defeated senatorial contestants have filed complaints largely surrounding alleged bloc-vote rigging and false claims of income-earning professions by “puppet” candidates, many of whom have been elected in last Wednesday’s national or final stage of the senatorial election.
However, evidence-based, fact-finding investigations which the Election Commission has been strongly urged to conduct pertaining to the alleged electoral wrongdoings on the part of a number of winning candidates would almost certainly be a time-consuming process, according to the polling agency’s official who only spoke on condition of anonymity.
Many of the unidentified winning candidates have been accused of being clandestinely connected with the Bhumjaithai under de facto party boss Newin Chidchob via unnamed wheeler-dealers who had allegedly handed them pads of paper with a list of fellow candidates to vote for during hush-hush meetings at hotels in the neighbourhood of Muang Thong Thani trade exhibition and convention centre used by the polling agency as a venue for the national or final tier of the senatorial election.
Many had allegedly purposely falsified their careers from which they have not truthfully earned regular incomes only to act as politically-influenced “puppet” contestants in the triple-tiered race to parliament in exchange for payoffs in cash.
In the senatorial election, deemed as the country’s unprecedented, complicated electoral process, the candidates were given votes from among fellow contestants in lieu of any constituents.
The Election Commission had earlier confirmed the total 200 senators-designate and 100 others in reserve could be officially ratified as soon as tomorrow though some could possibly be suspended by court from doing their legislative duties at a later date, pending probe into alleged electoral irregularities.
The polling agency is legally given a one-year period to conduct fact-finding investigations into suspected vote-rigging and other alleged electoral wrongdoings with retroactive effect to the extent that the senatorial status for those who may have evidently breached the election law and relevant rules be finally denied.
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Top and Front Page: Senatorial election polling stations. Photos: Thai Rath
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