Court to rule on whether to suspend candidate registrations
The Central Administrative Court will announce its decision tomorrow on whether to issue an injunction for the Election Commission to suspension suspend MP candidate registration for the second round of the general election.
The court yesterday tried the case brought by Democrat Party deputy secretary-general Thaworn Senneam to seek a court order to stop the commission from organising the constituency MP candidate registration, which was carried out at the weekend. Three witnesses were summoned including Thaworn, former Nakhon Si Thammarat senator Thawil Praison and Yongkiat Adisettakul, deputy director of the election watchdog's legal office. Thawil said, according to Article 74 of the Constitution, the EC had no right to allow new candidates to register in the second round without a Royal Decree for a new general election. Thaworn supported Thawil's claim saying that the EC allowed new candidates to register because it feared that many Thai Rak Thai Party candidates might not get the minimum 20 per cent of the vote if they were lone candidates. He said although the EC had already completed the MP candidate registration, it was not too late because the second round election was scheduled for April 23. Thaworn said he would file a criminal suit against the EC for malfeasance for allegedly breaking the election law. Yongkiat insisted the EC had abided by Article 145 (1) of the Constitution. He said the issue about candidates having below 20 per cent was unprecedented and could not be compared to any other election case.
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