EC urges alternate charter reforms, opposes plan for open party-lists
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THE ELECTION Commission delivered an eight-point proposal to the constitution drafters yesterday in which it called for the EC to get increased power, including the capacity to disqualify poll candidates and call a new election in the event of suspected f
Those powers now belong to the courts.
EC chairman Supachai Somcharoen told a press conference the agency opposed the Constitution Drafting Committee’s (CDC) idea to adopt an open-list voting system for the next general election.
In an open-list election, which is based on Germany’s electoral system, voters would have at least some influence on the order a party’s candidates are elected. It is a variant of the party-list proportional representation.
The EC argued that the open-list system could lead to severe conflict within political parties due to intense competition among candidates.
Supachai said the EC had submitted suggestions to the CDC and outlined the pros and cons of eight issues in the draft constitution.
The charter drafters are in the process of gathering opinions from relevant agencies to determine if the draft will be revised.
The EC also wants the power to cancel a scheduled election in order to prevent a crisis, such as the one experienced ahead of the previous election in February last year.
Supachai said that the EC opposed a clause in the draft constitution that would create a new agency – the Election Organising Committee – to organise elections while the EC would supervise elections. The EC wants to continue organising the elections as before.
The EC chairman said the agency did not want to hog power but it wanted to make elections fair, so well-qualified candidates were elected to serve the country.
He said that in most countries election agencies similar to the EC were responsible for holding elections.
“There is no reason to set up a new organisation to do the job. It is unlikely to help solve the problem of vote-buying or electoral fraud,” Supachai said.
He said the EC was not concerned that the new constitution would affect the agency. “It would be easier for us to just supervise elections, but that would be no use,” he explained.
Supachai said that the EC would strictly perform its duty in accordance with the new constitution.
“We are ready to do our best in holding the next election. We will make sure no mistakes are made, like what happened in the run-up to the February 2 election [last year],” he said.
One of the five election commissioners, Dhirawat Dhirarojvit, said that the EC would take proactive measures in the fight against electoral fraud, with an intelligence unit set up as part of the effort.
