EC justifies House seats calculation, rejects Wissanu’s advice to seek court opinion
The Election Commission on Thursday defended its decision to include stateless people in calculating the distribution of House seats and has no intention to seek a ruling on the issue from the Constitutional Court.
EC chairman Ittiporn Boonprakong insisted that the EC had complied with Section 86 of the Constitution by counting stateless people in Thailand as part of the population when calculating the distribution of 400 constituency House seats in 77 provinces nationwide.
Ittiporn said Section 86 stated that the EC must distribute the number of constituency House seats based on the population announced by the household registrar of the Provincial Administration Department in the year before the general election.
Ittiporn said the the country’s population numbers announced by the department included stateless people who lived in Thailand.
He added that the EC had used the same principle in distributing House seats in previous elections.
As of December 31, Thailand’s population was 66,090,475, and the drawing up of constituencies was based on the formula of one MP for 164,226 Thais.
Based on this formula, Bangkok would have 33 MPs, Nakhon Ratchasima 16 MPs, and Khon Kaen, Chiang Mai, and Ubon Ratchathani 11 MPs, for example.
Ittiporn was reacting to a comment by Deputy Prime Minister Wissanu Krea-ngarm, who said earlier this week that it was not right for the EC to count stateless people when calculating the number of MPs for each province.
Wissanu argued that stateless people cannot vote although they are counted as part of Thailand’s population by the Provincial Administration Department. Wissanu said counting them would distort the number of House seats, especially in border provinces where there are a lot of stateless people.
Wissanu suggested that the EC seek a ruling from the Constitutional Court on the matter.
Replying to a question by a reporter about Wissanu’s suggestion, Ittiporn dug his heels in and said the EC had no intention to approach the Constitutional Court.
Ittiporn was speaking to reporters after he met and consulted with representatives of political parties on the ceiling on spending for each political party and election candidate during the election campaign.
The meeting, which was held at the EC head office, also discussed rules for putting up campaign signs and how parties would conduct primaries before selecting candidates.
Ittiporn said the EC Office had prepared three models for setting the ceiling on spending, which were discussed with political parties during the meeting on Thursday.
In the first model, each candidate would be allowed to spend no more than 6.5 million baht and a party 152 million baht if the House completes its term on March 22. If the House were to be dissolved before completion of its term, the ceiling would be reduced to 1.74 million and 40.6 million baht, respectively.
The first model took into account the daily minimum wage rates, the consumer price index and diesel price as well as prices of plywood and vinyl boards, Ittiporn said.
He said the second model also took into account opinions of the Finance Ministry, the Bank of Thailand and the Commerce Ministry while the third model also took into account the inflation rate.
Ittiporn said the EC Office would later consider the opinions of those who had attended the meeting and make the decision on the ceiling on election spending by candidates and parties.https://www.nationthailand.com/thailand/politics/40024500
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