Ombudsman to consider call to nullify March-24 election
The Ombudsman’s Office will tomorrow discuss a request by a former party-list candidate of the disbanded Thai Raksa Chart party for the March 24th election to be nullified for breach of the Constitution and the MPs Election Act.
Mr. Raksakecha Chaechai, secretary-general of the Ombudsman’s Office, said today that the ombudsman had scheduled a special meeting tomorrow to discuss the petition which demands that the election be declared null and void, claiming that the calculation of the 150 party-list seats, to be allocated among contesting parties by the Election Commission(EC), is unconstitutional.
If the meeting agrees that Ruangkrai’s request is valid, the case will be referred to the Constitutional Court or the Administrative Court for further consideration.
Meanwhile, on Wednesday, the Democrat party also petitioned the Ombudsman’s Office challenging the EC’s formula forcalculating the allocation of party-list seats.
The EC’s formula for party-list seats has been heavily criticized by big parties who are supposed to be allocated seats based on the total votes they won in the election.
Smaller parties, meanwhile, have demanded that they should be entitle to at least one seat each based on the principle of “every vote counts.”
On Tuesday, the Constitutional Court rejected the EC’s petition for the court to rule on the formula for calculating party-list seats on the grounds that the EC is empowered to decide on the matter by itself.
