Election Commission said to miss meeting on Senate vote probe

The Election Commission (EC) will not appear at a meeting today of the special cases board of the Department of Special Investigation (DSI), which is to decide whether or not to investigate alleged collusion in last year’s Senate election, a source said yesterday.

Instead, the EC agreed at a meeting on Tuesday to send the board a letter contending that it was in fact the EC that was empowered to look into the case, the source said.

The board, led by Deputy Prime Minister Phumtham Wechayachai, was originally to rule on Feb 25 but pushed the decision back for more scrutiny.

On Wednesday, Mr Phumtham declined to comment on the EC’s decision, saying he preferred to wait until the meeting actually takes place before making any comments about it.

The organic law on the Election Commission provides the EC with the power to conduct the election-fraud probe, he said, when asked to comment on the EC’s claim that it is empowered to run the investigation, and added that he had not seen the EC’s written response to the board’s letter.

The allegations of vote-fixing have been made by a group of unsuccessful candidates who claimed the EC has been dragged to act upon up until now, including a few other reserve list ones.

Days earlier, the same statement suggested that “blue bloc” senators, a nickname for those known to support Bhumjaithai, a member of the government coalition, were the targets of the allegations.

Senator Chattrawat Saengphet, on the other hand, backtracked on comments he made in parliament earlier Tuesday, in which he suggested the DSI board could be legally liable for exceeding its mandate if it agrees to investigate the case. The senator added that this might amount to an attempt to overthrow democratic principles.

But yesterday he added that he was not accusing anyone of wrongdoing — because what he spoke about on Tuesday had not occurred.

Red-shirt leader Jatuporn Prompan, meanwhile, said a board vote opposing the government’s push for the DSI to take the case would signal its loss of power.