Govt, NLA deny EC lobbied to appeal MP election bill to court
Deputy PM Wissanu Krea-ngam on Thursday dismissed a notion that the Election Commission (EC) was lobbied to petition the Constitutional Court to rule on an amendment to the MP election bill that would allow parties to use entertainment during election campaigns, saying he has no knowledge about the matter.
The deputy PM, who is also the government’s law expert, said entertainment during election campaigns had been allowed in the past but discarded because they caused advantages and disadvantages among parties.
The cost of the activities, Wissanu said, was also hard to calculate and monitor.
However, whether to keep the amendment in the bill would depend now on a joint law review committee, if one were set up after the bill is reviewed bill by government bodies.
Election Commissioner Somchai Srisutthiyakorn on Wednesday posted a message on his Facebook account, saying an NLA member had called him proposing the EC raise objections to the point.
In Somchai’s view, if a joint law review committee was set up as a result of the objection to the bill as passed, it would take another month to finish the process, resulting to another one-month delay to the bill’s 90-day enforcement.
Bills are normally enforced immediately after proclamation. But in a controversial move, the NLA last month amended the bill to delay enforcement for 90 days, thus delaying the upcoming election from November this year to February 2019.
NL whip Jet Siratharanont said the legislative body, hand-picked by the junta, has no knowledge about Somchai’s claims. But if there was an NLA member calling him, he would reply that it is up to the EC to judge whether to take up the idea or not.
“I have no knowledge about this issue, and we have never overstepped other organisations. The NLA and the government could never have lobbied the EC, said Jet.