The Constitutional Court is scheduled to issue a ruling on March 3rd on whether non-Thais can be included as part of the population in the calculation of the number of constituency MPs for each province in Thailand.
An informed source said that the Constitutional Court agreed, at a meeting today (Tuesday), to accept the petition from the Election Commission (EC) regarding the non-Thai issue, after several critics voiced disagreement with the EC over the inclusion of non-Thais in the calculation method.
The source said that the charter court can either approve the EC’s current method of calculation or order the EC to recalculate.
According to the EC, the number of constituency MPs in eight provinces are expected to be changed in the new calculation: Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai, Tak and Samut Sakhon, which have a high concentration of non-Thais in their population, will have fewer constituency MPs, while Udon Thani, Lop Buri, Nakhon Si Thammarat and Pattani will be eligible for more.
There are 400 constituencies in Thailand’s 77 provinces, with one MP for each constituency. Out of a total population of 65,106,481, according to the latest census, one MP will represent 162,766 Thai people, instead of one MP for 165,226 people, including Thais and non-Thais.
The source said that the EC has put in place a Plan B, for use depending upon the charter court’s ruling. It has also instructed the eight provinces to be prepared to recalculate the number of constituency MPs.
