TRT accused of bankrolling rivals
Thai Rak Thai Party (TRT) executives were yesterday accused of hiring small political parties to run in yesterday's second round of voting to help candidates from the ruling party beat the hurdle of a minimum 20 per cent of votes.
Thaikorn Polsuwan, leader of the Isaan Liberation Front, said TRT executives were behind the move to hire small parties to run in the election yesterday. Anyone endorsed by the Election Commission as an MP candidate was paid Bt500,000, he said. Those who applied but failed to get endorsed were paid Bt100,000. The money was transferred through a bank account of a TRT member. Thaikorn slammed the EC for extending the investigations into TRT executives saying the agency already had enough solid evidence to take legal action against them. He dismissed as groundless the EC's claim that a key witness had reversed her statement four times and that was a reason to further probe the case. He said there were four key witnesses and only one had reversed her statement. The EC on Friday decided to dissolve Pattana Chartthai Party and Thai Ground Party after the EC's sub-committee found there were grounds to the allegation that they were hired to run in the April 2 election. Democrat Party spokesman Ong-art Klampaiboon attacked the EC's decision to dissolve the small parties saying the agency wanted to silence small parties from incriminating a large party.
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