Senatorial elections to proceed as planned, EC says

The Election Commission (EC) will not appeal the verdict of the Central Administrative Court that revokes three regulations concerning how Senate candidates introduce themselves and will proceed with organising the senatorial election from June 9-26 as planned.

After a meeting with election commissioners on Monday, EC secretary-general Sawang Boonmee said the commissioners voted unanimously not to appeal the court verdict. The commissioners cited that the court’s consideration of the appeal would likely conclude after the election ends, and therefore will not affect the upcoming election.

The EC’s decision is also in line with its resolution to not further delay the senatorial election process to ensure that Thai people get a new batch of 200 senators by early July as planned, said Sawang.

The court on Friday (May 24) ordered the revocation of regulation numbers 7, 8, and 11(2),(3) by the EC regarding introducing Senate candidates for the 2024 Senate election.

These regulations concerned limiting a candidate’s introduction to not more than two A4 pages, the method of electronic introduction, and the prohibition of candidates who are artists or media professionals from using their talents to introduce themselves.

The application for Senate candidates closed on Friday with a total of 48,226 applications submitted. EC reported that among these, 109 candidates were rejected due to lacking necessary qualifications or having prohibited ones.

Successful candidates will vote among themselves in three levels of elections to select the new 200-member Senate. Elections will be held at the district level on June 9, the provincial level on June 16 and the national level on June 26.

The new Senate will replace the 250-member Senate appointed by the junta. The tenure of the post-coup senators ended on May 10 but they are playing a caretaker role until a new Senate is selected.