By Thai Newsroom Reporters
AN INVESTIGATIVE COMMITTEE of the Election Commission today (July 17) put forward historic cases of vote-buying, bloc-voting allegations over last year’s senatorial elections involving as many as 229 law-breaking suspects and the Bhumjaithai under de facto party boss Newin Chidchob as a whole.
The ad hoc committee has concluded its in-depth investigation into scandals surrounding the vote-rigging, money-laundering plots allegedly orchestrated by persons practically associated with the Bhumjaithai, an opposition party surreptitiously steered by Newin.
The 229 suspects include 138 senators out of a total of 200 senior lawmakers and 91 persons including a number of the Bhumjaithai executive board members and others known as connected, either openly or clandestinely, with Newin’s camp.
The investigative panel’s findings will be shortly submitted to the Election Commission which will yet consider forwarding the disreputable cases to the Constitutional Court for final judgment.
If found guilty as charged in court on account of breaching the constitution’s organic law on senatorial elections, the Bhumjaithai could possibly be dissolved with all the party’s executive board members being prohibited from engaging in political activity at all levels for a number of years whilst the court-indicted individuals could possibly be sentenced to a maximum of 10 years in prison and a maximum of 200,000 baht in fine.
In particular, the indicted senators could possibly be banned from contesting any future elections for a number of years or for life.
The unnamed suspects associated in one way or another with Newin’s camp had allegedly preplanned and directed the vote-buying, money-laundering and bloc-voting plots ranging from the district and provincial levels to the national level of the unprecedented, complicated elections in which no constituents anywhere had been involved and only the contestants had cast votes among themselves.
Remarkably, Bhumjaithai leader Anutin Charnvirakul, Bhumjaithai secretary-general Chaichanok Chidchob, son of the de facto party boss, and former deputy House speaker Paradorn Prisnanuntakul have been accused of involvement in the electoral shenanigans.
CAPTIONS:
Top: Election Commission signage with Bhumjaithai Party logo inset. Photo: Thai Rath
Front Page: Interior of Election Commission office. Photo: PPTVHD36
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