By Thai Newsroom Reporters
ONLY EIGHT persons might probably be charged for involvement in a criminal conspiracy and money-laundering activity behind 2024’s senatorial election allegedly riddled with vote-buying, rigging shenanigans, according to Justice Minister Rutthapol Naowarat.
Out of a total of 229 persons initially suspected of having been more or less involved in the alleged vote-buying and rigging of the complicated election of 200 senators among an unspecified number of bribe-taking, manipulated candidates, only eight might probably be charged by the Department of Special Investigation with the alleged criminal conspiracy and money-laundering activity, the justice minister, who is legally obliged to supervise the investigative agency, commented today (July 14).
The 229 initial suspects reportedly include the likes of Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul who concurrently acts as interior minister and leader of the Bhumjaithai, core of the current coalition government surreptitiously steered by de facto party boss Newin Chidchob, his son/Bhumjaithai Secretary-General/Digital Economy & Society Minister Chaichanok Chidchob and Prime Minister’s Office Minister Paradorn Prisnanuntakul and as many as 138 winning contestants in the senatorial election of an unprecedented kind, among others.
Nevertheless, the DSI procedures primarily carried out against the eight suspected conspiring, money-laundering criminals may collectively constitute one lawsuit whilst the Election Commission could possibly come up with separate cases in relation to vote-buying, electoral rigging scandals against others among those initial suspects, according to the Bhumjaithai-attached justice minister.
He declined to either confirm or deny criticism that the DSI and polling agency might possibly fail to bring front-line, national-level politicians to justice or some sort of a cover-up could possibly be manipulated to keep them intact from relevant charges.
Among the suspected 138 senators out of the total 200 most of whom have so far invariably performed in support of the Bhumjaithai-led government’s plans and schemes, many were largely suspected to have been evidently involved one way or another in the vote-buying, rigging shenanigans clandestinely orchestrated by yet-unnamed persons personally associated with Newin’s camp.
If finally found guilty in court of involvement in such an electoral rigging conspiracy, the ultra-conservative Bhumjaithai could possibly be dissolved with all their executive board members being immediately deprived of their executive and legislative positions.
The senators are not only legally obliged to approve legislations and decrees passed on from the House of Representatives but to name members of “independent” agencies such as the National Anti-Corruption Commission, the Constitutional Court and the Election Commission, among others, whose performances have practically raised unanswered questions of integrity and impartiality in no small measures.
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Top and Front Page: 2024’s senatorial election. Photos- Thai News Pix BBC
Insert: Justice Minister Rutthapol Naowarat. Photo – Workpointtoday.com
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