The Election Commission (EC) has agreed to investigate alleged voting collusion in the senatorial election held last June, with an official from the Department of Special Investigation (DSI) being invited to join the panel.
The EC, which was earlier reluctant to look into the alleged collusion, even after it had received complaints from failed candidates, changed its mind when it received new evidence from the DSI on March 17, purportedly showing that the national-level election on June 26 last year involved collusion, according to informed EC sources.
The evidence is in the form of a note, instructing candidates to vote for 140 specific other candidates, identified by their electoral number.
The sources say that the DSI has checked the specific numbers in the note and found that they matched the numbers of 138 candidates who won the election and two senatorial reservists.
The DSI believes that such voting collusion amounts to an offence of criminal association, which falls under the jurisdiction of the EC to investigate and bring before the Supreme Court, said the sources.
In the meantime, the EC has dismissed a complaint filed against EC Secretary General Sawaeng Boonmee for alleged malfeasance due to lack of evidence.
EC Secretary General Sawaeng Boonmee
The complainant claimed that the election in June was manipulated, as indicated by 140 candidates wearing yellow shirts.
The EC maintains, however, that there is no regulation prohibiting candidates wearing shirts of the same colour, adding that, at the time, the government was urging members of the public to wear yellow shirts to celebrate the King’s birthday.
The EC ruled that there is no evidence to prove that the EC secretary-general had intentionally failed to perform his duty.
