THURSDAY, March 28, 2024
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Questions raised about electoral system that wants to make every vote count

Questions raised about electoral system that wants to make every vote count

Critics and politicians raised doubts over whether the new electoral system proposed by the charter drafters would reflect the real intentions of people though the system aims to make every vote "count".

The Constitution Drafting Com-mission (CDC) on Monday discussed a proposal that votes gained by candidates who lose in constituency election will be used to calculate the number of party-list seats per party nationwide.
Red-shirt leader and Pheu Thai member, Nuttawut Saikuar, said the CDC should not confuse people’s intentions in voting for a constituency candidate by transferring those votes to the party-list MP. He said previously, many voters had chosen different parties for the constituency and party-list ballots. “This is like depriving voters’ rights to cast two ballots,” he said. Also, he wondered whether the system would pave the way for an “outsider” PM and help a “big-time” loser party to come to power.
Former Democrat MP Nipit Intrasombat said the new voting calculation may not reflect the people’s intentions. He explained that transferring votes for constituency MPs to party-list MP was questionable, as the two were different in principle.
However, this electoral system may offer disadvantages to both big and small political parties.
Sodsri Stayatham, a former Election Commission (EC) member, said this system would give small parties a chance to win seats in Parliament, which would help undermine the domination of big parties. She said if this system were to be adopted, the country would have a coalition government comprised of more than 10 parties. Consequently, selection of a premier would be difficult, which may pave the way for a non-MP premier, Sodsri said. She warned that the draft charter might get rejected again if big parties, who have a wide support, did not back it.
  If the system were adopted, the Pheu Thai Party would see the number of its party-list MPs drop by more than a half, while Democrat and Chart Thai will find themselves with more party-list MPs, an EC source said.
EC member Somchai Srisuthi-yakorn said small parties might have a disadvantage because if they want to win votes for the party-list, then they would need to field as many constituency MPs as possible. For instance, if there are 400 constituencies, big parties will be able to field candidates in all of them, while small parties would not have that luxury, he said. Hence, big parties would have an advantage over small ones.
If the proportion of constituency and party-list MPs are alike, big parties will not have such an advantage when it comes to the total number of MPs, he said.
CDC spokesman Norachit Sinha-seni explained the CDC-designed electoral system allows room for a unitary government if the party has enough constituency MPs.
It was still possible because the CDC would use the constituency and party-list MPs ratio to reflect real votes. A possible ratio proposed in the meeting was 3:1, he added.
Also, the new electoral system would encourage voters to cast their ballots because they would still be significant, even if their favourite constituency candidate doesn’t win, political scientist from Thammasat University Attasit Pankaew said.
He said this system is fairer than the majoritarian system as votes received by losing candidates would be taken into account to determine the number of party-list seats the party would get. It would reflect the people’s votes, as failed candidates’ ballots would go to the party and not be wasted.
The system shows the designers understood voter behaviour when they choose the constituency MP candidate from the same party they voted for in the party-list system, as the previous electoral system invited them to “choose the right candidate and the preferred party”, he said.
However, a pitfall of the system is it would make political parties create alliances to avoid racing against each other in a bid to ensure they got a similar number of votes, the political scientist said. Looking at each party individually, he pointed out that they would want to send grade A-list candidates to run for an election to make sure they get as many votes as possible, he said, adding that because even if they didn’t win, the votes they received would matter. Fielding a weak candidate would cost votes and hurt party-list seats.
The most important question to ask the CDC now is whether the party list would be an open or closed list, Attasit said, suggesting that it should be closed so that the candidates could still have hope that if they lost the constituency vote, they still had a chance to be in the list. But there is a problem too, as it would give the party absolute power to manipulate the list, including putting party financiers on it at the last minute and nobody would know about it.

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