Six small parties announced today (Wednesday) that they will merge to form a new party to contest the next election, due to the new electoral system which will make it almost impossible for a small party to win a House seat.

Dr. Ravee Maschamadol, leader the New Palangdharma Party, said today that the merger of the New Palangdharma, Thairuamthai, Thaichana, Green, Thai Rungruang and Thai Rungroj parties is the only way for them to go under the new electoral system.

Under the new system, there will one ballot for the election of constituency MPs and another for party-list MPs. The House will be made up of 400 constituency MPs and 100 party-list MPs, instead of 350 and 150 respectively under the old system. The distribution of the party-list seats will be calculated by dividing the total votes received by each party by 100, instead of 500 as in the previous election. This will minimize the chance of small parties being allocated party-list seats.

Dr. Ravee claimed that there are about 20 small parties and political groups that want to merge for the next election, but there are some parties which want to run separately, such as Pheu Chart Thai, Thai Teachers for People and New Democrat.

He said that he expects a clearer picture to emerge before the end of the year, when more small parties are expected to merge.