Applications for Senate reach only 20% of target with one day to go
The Election Commission (EC) has received only 20,000 of the targeted 100,000 applications to contest for 200 seats in the new Senate after three days of candidacy registration, which ends on Friday.
Candidates will vote among themselves to select senators, prompting analysts and opposition politicians to call for as many applicants as possible to make it difficult to manipulate the voting.
A total of 4,642 people registered to contest the Senate election on Monday, 6,607 on Tuesday, and 9,434 on Wednesday – making a total of 20,683 people.
Application is open from May 20-24 between 8.30am and 4.30pm.
An EC source said a large number of people are expected to register their candidacy on the final day after careful checks to ensure their documentation is accurate.
On Wednesday, a public holiday, former Special Branch police officer Santhana Prayoonrat was spotted submitting his application at Bangkok’s Pathum Wan District Office. The scandal-hit former policeman said he applied in the district because his birth was registered there.
After the junta-appointed Senate’s five-year term expired on May 10, the EC called a new senatorial election that will see thousands of candidates vote among themselves to elect 200 new senators.
The complex system requires six rounds of voting at the district, provincial and national levels.
District-level voting is tentatively scheduled for June 9, provincial-level voting for June 16, and national-level voting for June 26. The result is due to be announced on July 2.
Candidates must be Thai nationals by birth, at least 40 years old, and have at least 10 years’ experience in their field. They must also have a connection with the district where they apply, either having been born there or studied, stayed, or worked there for at least two consecutive years.
Those barred from the election include political party members, public officials, senators under the current charter, former MPs, former government ministers, former local administrators, and former political party executives who vacated their seats less than five years ago.
Also prohibited from contesting are parents, spouses and children of senatorial candidates, MPs, senators, political appointees, local administrators, and officials of the Constitutional Court and independent organisations.
Senate applicants will vote among themselves over six rounds to select 10 senators from 20 eligible fields: law and justice, education, public health, agriculture, science and technology, mass communication, employees/workers, business owners, tourism professionals, industrialists, artists/athletes, independent professionals, women, and elderly, disabled or ethnic groups.
Each district-level group will select five people for an inter-group poll to elect 60 district candidates. The shortlisted candidates – 55,680 from 928 districts nationwide – will then vote at the provincial level to select two from each group for a total of 40 for each of the country’s 77 provinces.
This will result in 3,080 senatorial candidates at the national level, where they will repeat the intra-group and inter-group voting to select 10 candidates for each of the 20 groups. The final 200 candidates who are selected will become senators.
