Under such a system, election commissioners would no longer have quasi-judicial power or be susceptible to political influence, said Theerapat Serirangsan, a political scientist at Sukhothai Thammathirat University, who has conducted research into and monitoring of the EC.

Theerapat presented his findings during a three-day Thai Political Forum organised by the King Prajadhipok Institute. He said the creation of an election court would also lessen the workload of future election commissioners.

Theerapat's research, which did not cover the last two years of the EC, revealed that many regulations enforced by the commission did not reflect the spirit of the law. He criticised the EC for lacking the authority to control the spending of political candidates for both the lower and upper houses.

Referring to election campaigns, he said: "If you spend Bt100 million and the other [candidates] spend Bt1 million, whoever spends Bt100 million will most definitely win."

He said he would like to reprimand Gothom Araya, a member of the first EC, for not doing anything about this problem.

In Japan and South Korea, the controls over campaign money and the size of campaign posters are very effective, while Thailand lacks such regulations. Many candidates submit false financial records of their campaign expenditure to show they didn't exceed the Bt1.5 million as set by law, said Theerapat.

He criticised the April 2 poll in which the EC forced voters to use rubber stamps to cast ballots instead of pens. The EC claimed many votes would be wasted or invalid otherwise.

Theerapat said his findings had revealed the number of invalid [pen] markings at elections was actually decreasing and not increasing before the introduction of rubber stamps.

He said the rubber-stamp method was viewed as being more susceptible to fraud.

"The EC's investigation methods are also substandard and not clear and have led to criticism [of impartiality]," he said.

Pravit Rojanaphruk

 The Nation