EC meeting Friday, likely to pick Sept 10 for Rayong by-election

EC chairman Ittiporn Boonprakong said the EC Office had proposed that the by-election be held on September 10 and candidacy registration be carried out from August 15 to 19.

Ittiporn said the seven commissioners would have to consider and approve the EC Office’s proposal during a meeting on Friday.

The by-election is necessitated by the resignation of constituency MP Nakhonchai Khunnarong. He announced his resignation after the EC’s Rayong Office affirmed that Nakhonchai had served a year and six months in jail in 1999 in a theft case.

A complaint had been filed with the EC’s Rayong Office during the candidacy registration period against Nakhonchai, seeking his disqualification, but the Rayong office could not verify the complaint until after the election results were known.

The Constitution bans a person who has been jailed from contesting in an MP election. In his resignation announcement, Nakhonchai said he thought his petty crime case was not one of the crimes the charter banned from seeking House seats. He denied committing the crime for which he was jailed and said he had been living an honest life after serving the jail term.

Ittiporn said the EC Office has been assigned to file both criminal and civil charges against Nakhonchai.

The former Rayong MP would be charged with violating Article 151 of the election act by contesting in an MP election despite knowing he was not qualified.

He would also be charged under Article 420 of the Civil Code to shoulder all costs involved in holding the by-election, Ittiporn added.

The EC chairman added that the EC had received 350 election fraud complaints and half of them had been reviewed.