‘Black card’ lifetime ban for courts to decide: Somchai

His comments come after critics voiced concerns over a proposed organic law in the House of Representatives elections that they fear would allow the EC to ban for life any politician found guilty of electoral fraud, without a ruling by a court.

Somchai reiterated that the EC was only able to apply yellow and orange cards against fraudulent politicians. 

The yellow card refers to nullifying an election if irregularities have been found before an election date, while an orange card is a one-year ban imposed on winning candidates found having committed fraud after an election result announcement.

Under the new charter, a red card would be under a court’s jurisdiction. The court would consider issuing a red card to disqualify winning candidates after the election result is announced. An individual’s electoral rights could be revoked for 10 years for offences involving electoral fraud.

However, the new charter stops short of mentioning the revocation of rights, leaving room for interpretation. It only stipulates that candidates who have had their electoral rights revoked cannot run in an election, creating a question over “black cards” to address a ban on rights.

The EC’s role in banning politicians has become controversial since the commission is due to propose the MPs election law to the Constitutional Drafting Commission (CDC). The draft organic law gives the EC sweeping powers to deal with dishonest politicians.

Somchai, however, said the draft law focuses on election reform and solves deep-rooted election problems which occurred in the past, rather than giving the EC great power.

Four points have been reformed under the draft law, the commission said, including MP candidate processes, election campaigns, voting processes, and poll result announcements.

For instance, the parties can only use specific-sized posters for campaigns and place the posters in specific public places determined by the EC. These reforms would help reduce election costs, he said. 

Regarding the election policies, Somchai said the EC would not have authority to screen or revoke any policies and it would only help disseminate policies to the public.

Somchai said the EC’s working group involved in drafting the law had not yet finished its work and there were many points to be revised before it could be forwarded to the CDC this Friday.

Meanwhile, the National Reform Steering Assembly (NRSA) accepted its political reform committee’s recommendations on political parties and House of Representatives election draft bills. They will be forwarded to the CDC. The NRSA meeting voted 136 with 26 abstentions on the MPs election bill recommendation and 154 with 17 abstentions on that for the political parties bill. 

Witthaya Kaewparadai, a member of the committee, said the NRSA would also submit its proposals to the National Council for Peace and Order. Witthaya said it also included an additional recommendation on promoting the coming election as a national issue, under which concerned agencies including the NCPO would be used to maintain order. 

Witthaya insisted, however, that the NRSA did not literally address the controversial role of the NCPO in the election, as proposed earlier.

The committee chairman, Seri Suwanpanont, said the NRSA made the recommendations to be in line with the constitution’s intention to suppress chronic political fraud and corruption.