By Thai Newsroom Reporters
The polling agency has called Bhumjaithai de facto boss Newin Chidchob, party leader Anutin Charnvirakul plus a few others for questioning over senatorial rigging scandals.
DE FACTO BHUMJAITHAI BOSS Newin Chidchob and other big names of the second largest coalition partner have been recently summoned by the Election Commission for questioning in relation to vote-buying, bloc-voting, money-laundering scams over last year’s nationwide senatorial elections.
Those prominent Bhumjaithai figures suspected of involvement albeit in hush-hush, tacit fashion, in the unprecedented electoral fraud charges from district and provincial to national levels of the unprecedented, complicated elections for 200 senators include titular Bhumjaithai leader Anutin Charnvirakul, Deputy House Speaker Paradorn Prisnanantakul, Bhumjaithai Secretary-General Chaichanok Chidchob, son of the de facto party boss, and Newin himself, among others.
In particular, Paradorn, the Bhumjaithai deputy House speaker-cum-MP of Angthong, has been alleged of playing a part in designing the senatorial riggings whilst Chaichanok, also an MP of Buriram, as been accused of involvement in the relevant money-laundering scams.
So far 164 persons mostly associated with Newin’s camp have been formally summoned over the weekend by the polling agency’s investigative committee for testimony over the sensational electoral fraud shenanigans in which as many as 140-plus winning contestants have been more or less suspected of having been illicitly involved.
The Election Commission’s probe panel includes officials of the Department of Special Investigation, a government agency under care of the Ministry of Justice, which had originally launched an in-depth probe in regard to money-laundering activities pertaining to the alleged electoral rigging plots. Unnamed persons allegedly connected with Newin’s camp had quietly orchestrated the bloc-voting, electoral rigging plots perpetrated by those suspected, winning candidates in the perplexing, triple-tiered senatorial races.
If finally found guilty of involvement in such electoral wrongdoings, the Bhumjaithai could possibly be dissolved by court with all the party’s executive members being prohibited from engaging in all levels of political activity for a number of years whilst all senators relevantly convicted by court could possibly be deprived of their legislative status in retroactive fashion.
CAPTION:
Top and Front Page: De facto Bhumjaithai leader Newin Chidchob, left, and party leader Anutin Charnvirakul. Photo: Thai Rath
Also read: Newin, not Anutin, has final say over new cabinet lineup
Thai-Cambodian meeting makes progress on installing border markers
2nd army Commander to Cambodia: If you want the land you have to fight for it
Man slashes two to death then hangs self in land grab row
Air India airplane resumes flight after bomb threat with a suspect questioned
