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Published on November 8, 2007

Eighteen political parties registered their party-list candidates and were assigned candidacy numbers yesterday, signalling the start of election campaigning for the December 23 nationwide poll. All parties registered to run, expected to number between 20 and 30, are required to submit their list of constituency-based candidates by next week. All party lists for the eight zones nationwide, each comprising a cluster of provinces, have to be filed with the central registration centre in Bangkok by Sunday, while candidates for direct voting will register next week from Monday to Friday at their respective constituency registration centres. Of the 480 House seats up for grabs, 80 will be decided by proportionate votes cast in eight constituencies, each with 10 available seats, and 400 will be allocated via direct votes cast in 197 constituencies, each with one to three seats depending on the number of eligible voters.

When campaigning begins in earnest in the coming days and weeks, Thailand's 40 million-plus voters will learn more about parties' policy platforms, their ideological orientations and the methods they will use to persuade people to vote for them. All the parties, either newly created or groups of political old-timers registered under a new name, will have less than two months to introduce themselves to the public, communicate their ideas and canvass for votes.

There is widespread concern that some of the parties, armed with formidable war chests, will resort to vote-buying to bankroll their way to the House of Representatives. Both the Election Commission and the interim Surayud government have pledged to do their best to prevent electoral fraud and ensure a free and fair election. The Election Commission is the leading agency organising the election, while the Surayud government is charged with providing security, logistical support and making sure that all government officials stay impartial and do nothing that can be construed as being biased in favour of or against certain parties.

Both the Election Commission and the government are faced with a tall order. Vote-buying tactics, which continue to be widespread in rural constituencies where people are poor, have evolved over the years. In the old days, canvassers simply handed out cash to eligible voters they wanted to persuade to vote for them. These days, cash can be transferred electronically to recipients over time, in instalments, to avoid arousing suspicion and detection by poll monitors.

It is already evident that the election will be contested between supporters of deposed prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra's now-defunct Thai Rak Thai Party and the political forces opposed to his five-and-a-half-year reign that ended when the military overthrew him in a bloodless coup in September last year. Battle lines have been drawn between two camps symmetrically opposed. Thaksin loyalists, who are contesting the election under a new party banner, can count on the support of the rural masses still enamoured by populist policies, while anti-Thaksin parties can depend on the urban middle-class to vote for them. But there are also some opportunistic parties - most of them created overnight by politicians with deep pockets - that are ready to latch on to whichever side emerges as the biggest winner next month.

The election is being touted as an important turning point, after which Thailand is supposed to revert to full democracy following more than one year of military rule.But Thailand's future as a democratic society is far from assured unless the Election Commission and the interim government succeed in enlisting the support of fair-minded, democracy-loving people, particularly idealistic youths, to serve as election monitors and ensure a relatively clean election.

The Election Commission and the government must also make the best use of the less than two months between now and election day to educate the public about how democracy works.

People need to be taught quickly how to distinguish between the candidates. They need to be able to tell the difference between principled political parties, with responsible policies backed by realistic financing options, and unprincipled ones that have no qualms about bribing people for votes while promising instant gratification through populist policies, at the same time providing no clue as to where they are going to find the money to fund them.