The Election Commission’s Office will this week submit to the Election Commission (EC) 2 or 3 formulae options for the calculation of the 150 party-list seats to be allocated to parties contesting the March 24th election.
EC Secretary-General Jarungvith Phumma said today that the formulae would be proposed so that the seat allocation can be completed and the official election results can be announced by the May 9th deadline.
The first formula, which was jointly proposed by the EC and the Constitution Drafting Committee, advocates the sharing of party-list seats among all parties, including the smaller ones that received fewer votes than the benchmark of 71,057 for one seat.
The second formula, which was proposed by former election commissioner Somchai Srisutthiyakorn, advocates that only the 16 parties that garnered a minimum of 71,057 votes in the election will be allocated party-list seats.
The third formula, suggested by another former election commissioner, Kothom Arya, is similar to Somchai’s with a minor difference in the second round of calculation, namely the decimal fractions are deleted from the calculation.
Future Forward party leader Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit said today that the calculation of party-list seats is a big issue noting that, if a formula is used which gives a seat to each of the smaller parties, the Pheu Thai-led coalition would get fewer than 250 constituency and party-list seats in the parliament which will not give it a majority.
