All three ombudsmen have voted to ask the Constitutional Court to rule whether some provisions of the MP law involving the allocation of party-list MPs are constitutional but dismissed calls to nullify the March 24 election.
Ruangkrai Leekitwattana, a former member of the now-dissolved Thai Raksa Chart Party and Wiratana Kalayasiri of the Democrat Party, earlier submitted petitions to the ombudsmen on election-related issues.
Mr Ruangkrai asked them to rule whether the poll was conducted honestly and fairly and whether some of the Election Commission's actions violate the constitution or related laws to the point the results should be voided. Mr Wiratana, meanwhile, asked the ombudsmen about the party-list allocation method.
Raksagecha Chaechai, the Ombudsman's office's secretary-general, said yesterday that while there were some inconsistencies in the EC's announcements on poll results, they were intended to give the public preliminary information. The EC, therefore, did not perform its duty dishonestly.
On the failure to count the ballots from New Zealand, which came after the vote ended, the EC made the decision based on related laws, which was not unconstitutional.
On the EC's failure to inform the public of the results, the EC put them up on a board in front of each voting unit for everyone to see. As a result, it was not true that the EC did not inform the public, Mr Raksagecha said.
Parties and several civic groups have been asking the EC to reveal the results from each polling unit instead of those at the constituency level, but the EC has declined, citing the same reason given by the ombudsmen. There were some 92,320 poll units in 350 constituencies nationwide.
On the issue of party-list allocation, the ombudsmen were of the opinion the formula outlined in Section 128 of the law on the election of MPs contradicted the one stipulated by the constitution.
Mr Raksagecha said while the constitution provided the calculation method for the "quota" of party-list MPs, the law added the phrase "initial quota".
"This brings results which are not in line with the criteria laid down under Section 91 of the constitution, calling into question the constitutionality of the provision [Section 128]. The ombudsmen, therefore, decided to forward the case to the Constitutional Court," he said.
The EC had earlier asked the court to make the same ruling but the court voted 7-2 to dismiss its petition.
