Parliament President Chuan Leekpai and senior officials of the Office of the House of Representatives yesterday (Wednesday) inspected the new parliament building at Kiakkai intersection. The new building will be opened for the first meeting of the Senate next week.

For the past two months, members of the Senate and the Lower House have been meeting at the rented auditorium of TOT Company, which has been used while the new parliament building is prepared for use.

The legislators may experience some initial inconvenience at their new office, such as the electronic voting system and the sound system, which had yet to be tested when the new parliament building was visited by Mr. Chuan.

The parliament president reportedly expressed concern that there may not be enough seats to accommodate all the 750 MPs and senators during their joint sitting.  He was assured that the 250 seats reserved for visitors to observe parliamentary meetings would be used to accommodate the lawmakers during joint meeting sessions.

Mr. Chuan mentioned the importance of the electronic voting system, saying that officials must make sure that the system works properly and must be ready for meetings.

House of Representatives Secretary-General Surasak Pienwech admitted there might be some inconvenience during initial use because the number of voting devices available does not match the number of the lawmakers.

To temporarily solve the problem, he said more voting machines might be rented or voting might be separated into two shifts.