FRIDAY, March 29, 2024
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Tit-for-tat widens post-poll divisions

Tit-for-tat widens post-poll divisions

PHEU THAI APPROACHES EC, SEEKS ACTION AGAINST PM OVER USE OF STATE BUDGET BEFORE ELECTION

THE March 24 election, far from bringing stability to politics, seems to have only unleashed a slugfest as politicians go for the jugular with lawsuits and complaints against rivals even as the country awaits anxiously the official election results more than a month since polling day.
The charges pressed in the past month have ranged from computer crimes to violation of electoral laws, and range in severity from causing small inconvenience to disqualification from office, a political ban and party dissolution.
In the latest tit-for-tat action, Pheu Thai Party yesterday lodged a complaint with the Election Commission (EC) against the junta chief and Phalang Pracharat Party’s PM candidate, General Prayut Chan-o-cha, accusing him of handing out cash to public health volunteers to get them to vote for Phalang Pracharat.
The accusation was based on the Cabinet’s resolution in December to raise the pay for the volunteers from Bt600 to Bt1,000 a month with three months retroactive payment. The scheme cost the exchequer Bt4.2 billion and came into effect late in March – a couple of days before the election.
Pheu Thai secretary-general Phumtham Wechayachai said yesterday such exploitation of the national budget would have landed an ordinary government leader in jail.
Also yesterday, Pheu Thai – the regime’s arch rival – also petitioned the EC to dissolve Phalang Pracharat for having approved an ineligible MP candidate.
The case involves Chanwit Wiphusiri, Phalang Pracharat’s successful MP candidate in Min Buri district, who is alleged to hold shares in a media company, which is prohibited for MP contestants.
The allegation was the same as the one levelled against the anti-junta leader of Future Forward Party, Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit. If found guilty, Thanathorn could be disqualified from the House of Representatives.
The Pheu Thai representative in the case, Narong Rungthanawong, told the press he would like the EC to scrutinise Chanwit the same way it had done Thanathorn, adding that Pheu Thai had already made sure none of its MPs were shareholders in media companies.
Prominent social activist Srisuwan Janya yesterday also filed the same complaint regarding Chanwit with the EC. 
Srisuwan had earlier gone after Future Forward Party members, lodging multiple complaints against them, but the activist insisted yesterday that he treated candidates from all parties equally.
Responding to Thanathorn’s threat to also bring him to court, Srisuwan said he remained undeterred and might sue the politician again, accusing him of presenting false evidence to the EC in the media-shares case.
Meanwhile, anti-junta politician Seripisut Temiyavet yesterday faced a disqualification threat after one of his former subordinates, Tinnakorn Natmungkung, requested the EC to investigate whether Seripisut had been fired from a state office.
Dismissal from state office is a prohibition for MP candidates, under the Constitution.
In addition to these suits involving politicians, the poll authority itself is facing accusations of negligence of duty in failing to conduct the calculation of party-list MPs and seeking the Constitutional Court’s intervention on the matter. The EC has yet to clarify the issue. Its president, Ittiporn Boonpracong, yesterday would only say that the results would be announced next week following the timeframe, while refusing to say which method would be used.
 

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