Wife of missing human rights lawyer wins senatorial election
Very few civil-sector workers won by a tiny margin because the poll was rigged for certain candidates, claims Senator-elect Angkhana
Angkhana Neelapaijit, wife of “disappeared” human rights lawyer Somchai Neelapaijit, has won a seat in the Senate as a representative of the civil sector and NGOs.
However, she claimed the senatorial poll was rife with fraud that allowed lobbying for votes for certain candidates. This, she said, was proven by the fact that only three candidates from her group had won a seat.
The Election Commission (EC) announced unofficial results after the final round of voting on Wednesday but has yet to endorse the 200 winners as senators.
Angkhana was among the 2,168 candidates from Group 17, which covered the civil sector, NGOs and similar occupations. She said only she and two other candidates from her group had won, while some were put on a waiting list.
The human rights activist added that it was very disappointing that so few people from the civil sector won, adding that this was because nobody had connections. She also said she suspected that influential people lobbied for “bloc votes” for certain candidates who ended up with a very high number of votes.
She added that civil sector workers who applied through other groups had also done very badly.
“We civil sector candidates talked among ourselves. We want to come in and work for the people, but were disappointed to see that seats had been ‘reserved’ for certain candidates, and those from the civil sector won at a very low ratio,” Angkhana said.
Besides, she said, most won by a very tiny margin, so small that they could easily have failed to win.
“This shows that candidates without connections or power found it very tough to win a seat in the Senate,” she said.
Angkhana began working as a human rights activist while trying to find the truth behind her husband’s disappearance. He was reportedly dragged into a vehicle on March 12, 2004, while leaving a hotel in Bangkok, and has not been seen since. At the time of disappearance, Somchai was representing five Muslim suspects allegedly involved in an Army camp raid in Narathiwat in January 2004.
Later, Angkhana worked as a commissioner for the National Human Rights Commission of Thailand from November 2015 to 2019.
