We used our own money: Candidates
Disqualified candidates of the Pattana Chart Thai Party yesterday claimed they had used their own money to contest the April 2 election as they believed they could win when the Democrat Party decided to boycott the poll.
Thai Rak Thai and Pattana Chart Thai representatives then tried to prove the candidates were not hired to run in the election. Prayoon Poonchan, Police Major Sa-ngiam Samranrat, Somboon Tangchitsomboon, Charat Manee-sri, Patipat Kiattheeravichai and Wirat Srichote were testifying before the Constitution Tribunal in the fourth hearing of the electoral fraud case against the Thai Rak Thai Party, for allegedly hiring Pattana Chart Thai candidates to contest the election. Only Charat and Patipat said they received Bt15,000 each from Sa-ngiam. Sa-ngiam claimed he had given his own money to the two as he had persuaded them to run in the election. However, the Election Commis-sion (EC) asked the Supreme Court to disqualify them on March 30 last year - just a few days before election day. The Attorney-General said Suksan Chaiyates, Pattana Chart Thai party director, had filed a statement to the EC that Sa-ngiam was a member of both the Thai Rak Thai and the Pattana Chart Thai, while the others were disqualified as they had not been party members for 90 days. However, the witnesses said they had never seen Suksan's documents. Constitution Tribunal members also questioned why the candidates had accepted the Supreme Court ruling when their documents said they had been members for over 90 days. The witnesses said they had just accepted it and had never questioned or wanted to appeal against it. Witnesses in earlier hearings had told the court the party candidates' membership information was modified and that the documents were fake. Somboon said he had applied for party membership on March 5, but party leader Boontaweesak Amornsin signed his membership approval on August 1, 2005. Somboon said he had questioned about the date but Boontaweesak said it was all right as he was running in a Bangkok constituency. The law requires at least 90 days of political party membership before registering candidacy in a constituency. Somboon said he "lost and wasted a lot" of money registering for the parliamenatry poll. Had he known he would be disqualified, he wouldn't have registered for the parliamentary election as he had planned to run for the Senate. He said he didn't know about the agreement between Boontaweesak and Democrat Party secretary-general Suthep Thaugsuban. Kornchanok Raksaseri The Nation
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