The Election Commission (EC) says changes to constituency boundaries in the general election are inevitable but will not be drastic.
EC deputy secretary-general Natt Laosisavakul said on Monday provincial EC offices had been told to use the population data on the Dec 31, 2017 census in defining the boundaries.
They will come up with three models and make them public so stakeholders and parties can share their opinions on each model for 10 days. After that, they will summarise the opinions and send them to the EC to choose the best model, he said.
“We expect an NCPO [National Council for Peace and Order] order will be issued in mid-September requiring primary votes be held in the 90-day window from the date the MP law is published but has yet to take effect.
“To hold primary votes, clear constituencies must first be defined so parties know who to field as candidates. But since the population has grown and the number of constituencies is reduced to 350 from 375, changes are inevitable,” Mr Natt said.
In 80% of cases, a constituency will be based on a district, except when it is geographically impossible, whereby a municipality may be spun off from a district. But from the tambon level and downward, there will definitely be no spinoff of an administrative area into a different constituency for fair competition,” he said.
The process must be completed in 60 days after the MP law is published in the Royal Gazette, or mid-November.
“We have to prepare ourselves. If the election is held in February, the same population data apply. But if the poll date is set in May, a new census may come out and we need to recalculate."
According to the latest census on Dec 31, Thailand’s population is 66.2 million. Based on this, each constituency will have 189,000 people, slightly more than 186,000 used in the failed Feb 2, 2014 election.
“The government asked us to cut election costs. But since the new charter increases the number of voters per polling station to 1,000 from 800, we’ll have fewer polling stations, from 96,000 units to 6,000 units. We should then be able to cut costs by 3% in every province. Expenses on polling station staff should be lower as well,” he said.
According to earlier reports, the EC estimated the budget for the general election at 5.8 billion baht while the budget to the senator election is set at 1.2 billion baht.
Earlier, there were rumours of gerrymandering to favour parties or groups that support the incumbent.
