Reaching out to the public would violate election law, EC warns Senate candidates
Senate election candidates are required by the Constitution and election law to introduce themselves to peer candidates, not to the people, Election Commission (EC) secretary-general Sawang Boonmee reiterated on Thursday.
Sawang was responding to criticisms that the regulations of the EC did not require Senate candidates to report to the people, who were the real owners of power in a democracy.
One of the critics of the EC’s senatorial election rules was Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit, the former leader of the now defunct Future Forward Party.
Sawang explained on Thursday that the EC was not the one to make the rules, and that they were based on the charter and election law.
Sawang said the EC realised the importance of the people and acknowledged that although the people could not directly elect senators, the people had the right to monitor, check and observe the senatorial candidates and the elections after the candidacy registration period ends.
The Senate election will be held in three levels of peer voting among candidates, who will represent 20 professional groups. The election at the district level will be held on June 9, at the provincial level on June 16 and national level on June 26, Sawang said, adding that the results would be announced on July 2. Candidate registration opens on May 13.
Sawang said while the candidates were being registered, their names could not be released for fear it would affect applications by representatives of the 20 professional groups.
After all the candidates have registered, the EC would publish their names and background in the Smart Vote application where other candidates and the people can view.
Sawang said Thanathorn and any other people could encourage people to join the Senate election and the EC itself is issuing such an invitation.
Sawang added that the Smart Vote app would provide a channel for candidates to introduce themselves to other candidates.
The EC secretary-general said it could not be estimated how many candidates would take part in the district-level elections but the provincial elections would see the number drop to 55,000 candidates.
Sawang added that law had provided a system to prevent collusion among candidates to fix election results, but cases of fraud were still possible.
He said candidates might try to exchange votes among themselves or some might try to have their voters apply just to vote for them.
