New parties require only 500 members
Only 500 founding members would be required to set up a political party under the new draft bill, said Constitution Drafting Commission (CDC) spokesman Udom Rathamarit, instead of the 5,000 previously proposed by the Election Commission (EC).
Udom said the new political party law would require at least 15 initiating people to notify the EC before finding at least another 500 members inclusively from all regions and finally officially registering the party with the EC. The processes would make it easier for a new party to be formed.
The CDC also stipulated that a new party should have starting capital of at least Bt1 million raised from its founding members, with each contributing around Bt2,000 to support party activities, Udom said.
Such a system, the drafters believed, would foster more active participation among party members.
The spokesman said he did not believe the stricter member registration would affect the big parties which mostly should already have an effective membership management system in place.
But he said the new procedure could pose some problems for smaller parties as it meticulously requires registering members to submit documents such as agreement papers and proof of identification.
Once the new law was in place, the EC would also have to check up on party members to prevent repetition of party membership. Udom quoted EC representatives as saying they did not have a problem resolving the task as they had come up with legal instruments to deal with it.
Udom said that the CDC was currently trying to speed up its work and would invite related agencies for discussions before forwarding the complete law to the National Legislative Assembly and the EC for further deliberation.
The CDC expected to reach that goal by next month or December – the time it anticipated the new constitution could pass all procedures, including Royal endorsement, and come into effect.
Another spokesman, Norachit Sinhaseni, said that the CDC had finished at least 20 articles of the law. The CDC has to write 10 organic laws to support their constitution draft passed by a national referendum in August.
Four of these – political parties, Senate, members of the House of Representatives, and the EC’s powers and responsibilities acts – are priorities as they are necessary to organise a general election next year as promised in the junta’s road map. They are expected to be completed early next year.
The rest would be written and completed later next year before an election.