My comments with respect to the decision of the National Legislative Assembly (NLA) to vote down all seven new Election Commissioner candidates and its political implications.
Whether it was intentional or not, the National Legislative Assembly’s (NLA) rejection of the Election Commissioner candidates acted as a tactic to buy time for the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO). This will provide more opportunity or the military to run their political campaign, which is not fair for political parties. If we are to discuss “free and fair elections”, we must also consider the political circumstances preceding elections. The upcoming election (so long as it is not once again postponed by the NCPO) cannot be described as a free and fair election because the military is able to exercise its absolute power to manipulate state mechanisms in order to mobilise their popularity.
The rejection of the Election Commissioner candidates can result in further delays to the election, which I believe it is a mechanism to buy time for the NCPO, whilst they also already have Article 44 to exercise absolute power at their convenience. Delays to the election timeline have more to do with the readiness of the Thai military to compete at the polls, rather than the readiness of the country, despite the NCPO’s claims that Thailand as a country is unready for elections.
I am not convinced, like many other Thais and political observers, that the NLA’s decision to reject the Election Commissioner candidates was independent and without any influence from the NCPO. After all, the NLA was appointed by the NCPO, so they have been voting consistently along with the demands of the NCPO, rather than responding to the demands of the people of Thailand.
Indeed, I argued that we cannot just look at the problems on the surface or just simply believe that the NLA’s rejection of the Election Commissioner candidates is a problem with either the selection process or the selecting committee.
This rejection simply reflects the undemocratic nature of the current political system in Thailand under the military junta, where the voices of the military are at the centre of the power structure.
