CDC's goal - a simple electoral system based on trust

There was also concern that large political parties were worried the new electoral system might deprive them of votes for the party-list election. If their nominee parties won seats from the party-list system, the large “parent” parties could win many MP seats from constituencies, leaving them ineligible to gain any votes for the party-list system. 

Under the new vote-count system proposed by the CDC, only votes from the losing candidates in constituencies would be counted to calculate the number of party-list MPs for the political parties. That would mean a disadvantage for political parties that won many MP seats from constituencies. If they wanted to form a stable government and reduce the political disadvantage against them, those large parties would be likely to float nominee parties. 

Those nominees might be in the form of an “auxiliary” or “subsidiary” set up by a “parent party”. Or they might be smaller parties acting as “allies” to the larger parties and planning to work together after the general election. 

This issue has been raised by Sombat Thamrongthanyawong, former rector of the National Institute of Development Administration (Nida) who earlier was a member of the National Reform Council, and Yuthaporn Issarachai, former dean of Sukhothai Thammathirat Open University’s Faculty of Political Science. 

Many people agreed it was possible nominee parties could come into existence if the new voting system became effective. However, they did not think it would be too easy. 

Jade Donavanik, dean of Dhurakit Pundit University’s Faculty of Law who is a former constitution drafter and an adviser to the current CDC, said that nominees could exist in any system. He warned that there would be a “big risk” in having voters cast their ballots only once for constituencies and then counting their votes for the party-list election, with the constituency winners’ votes uncounted. 

The proposed new system forces voters to vote for only one candidate/party in their constituency. Any party that wishes to “transfer” its support votes to its nominee party, in the hope of winning MP seats from the party-list system, might risk losing in the constituencies. 

The nominee parties also could not be guaranteed election victory, despite their “secret deal” with the larger parties. They could not rest assured of votes from supporters of the larger parties. Moreover, if voters were viewed as individuals with the freedom of choosing, it would be unlikely for them to “transfer” their support from the favourite party to its “nominee”. Also, the larger parties could not be fully sure their “nominees” or “allies” would support them in Parliament if those smaller parties won considerable MP seats. Their pre-election alliance deal might not be honoured. 

CDC chairman Meechai Ruchupan commented that he could not figure out how the feared nominee or alliance deal would be worked out. “How can they be sure the voters want them to get elected? Their competitors might win the seats if they focused on ‘sharing votes’ with their nominees. They would succeed if they could tell their supporters to vote for their nominees when they had enough votes in the constituencies,” Meechai said. 

It would be difficult to tell if there would be nominee or alliance deals between larger and smaller parties. “What is important is that we must trust the voters and respect the people’s decision,” he said. 

Voters have the right to choose the candidate and the party they want to run the government. People who are worried about nominee parties, in fact, do not believe in the people’s judgement. They do not seem to be convinced that voters can make their decisions based on reason. 

It is time that we design the country’s electoral system to better reflect the people’s intention. That should be better than creating a complex system based on the lack of trust in the voters.