Activist Srisuwan Janya plans to petition the Ombudsman on Friday against the Election Commission's (EC) decision to award one party-list seat to each of the 11 small parties.
The secretary-general of the Association for the Protection of the Constitution has accused the EC of violating Section 91 of the constitution and setting a negative precedent in politics by opting for a formula of calculating the party-list seats which leaves the government with a fragmented coalition line-up.
The EC's decision will encourage small parties to establish themselves and contest future elections, which is against the principle of political reform aimed at keeping the number of small parties to a minimum, he said.
The EC has awarded a party-list MP to each of the 11 small parties, which won fewer than 71,000 votes. Section 91 of the charter suggests the average votes a party must win to earn itself an MP seat is about 71,000.
Meanwhile, Samart Kaewmeechai, a former Pheu Thai Party MP for Chiang Rai, said the EC's decision now makes it likely to guess which party will lead the new government.
However, this would not guarantee the stability of the new government. Pheu Thai secretary-general Phumtham Wechayachai also accused the EC of violating Section 91 of the constitution and interpreting the election laws on its own terms.
If the EC had upheld the minimum vote threshold, only 16 parties would have picked up MPs and the anti-regime camp would have gained a parliamentary majority of 253 MP seats, while the pro-regime bloc would have ended up with 245 MP seats, he said.
