KPI Thai Politics Up-date No. 5 (February 20, 2009) “hot”g Thailand’s Election of December 23, 2007: Observations from Chachoengsao Province Michael H. Nelson1 On September 19, 2006, Army Commander-in-Chief Sonthi Boonyaratglin led a group of soldiers in overthrowing the Thaksin government. The drafting of a new constitution, a referendum on it, and a general election followed. Small groups of people-in-power in Bangkok invariably made the decisions. However, they necessi- tated a large range of follow-up actions and much discussion at Thailand’s provincial level. The present report is the third in a small series that deals with what happened in Chachoengsao province during this latest instance of military intervention in Thai pol- itics. The first report described public hearings on the draft constitution (KPI Thai Politics Up-date, No. 3, August 14, 2007), while the second was about the referendum on the constitution (KPI Thai Politics Up-date, No. 4, February 6, 2008). As with the first two reports, the present one is based on field data collection in Chachoengsao, conducted between October 1 and December 30, 2007.2 This report will deal with the basic electoral organization, the redrawing of constituency boundaries, the electoral calendar, the process of becoming a candidate, issues concerning the political struc- ture and the election candidates, the roles of the Election Commission of Thailand (ECT) and Chachoengsao’s Provincial Election Commission (PEC) in election adver- tising, advance voting, and the election results.3 Finally, the conclusion will expand the horizon beyond the province of Chachoengsao. 2 Basic electoral organization The ECT’s organizational division into a board consisting of a chairperson and four members appointed for a single term of seven years (the commission proper)4 and a permanent office headed by a secretary general was mirrored at the provincial level. The PEC consisted of five members appointed for a single term of four years. De- pending on the size of a province, the number of officials making up the PEC offices varied, though each had only one director. At the time of the election, the PEC office in Chachoengsao comprised 17 officials: one director; four officials in the general administration section; two in the political party section; three in the election section; three in the public participation section; and four in the investigation section. The PEC’s main and most time-consuming work seemed to be to consider case files con- cerning electoral fraud in local elections, make preliminary decisions, and then refer such cases for final decisions to the ECT. Other tasks were very limited and more formal in nature. These included determining the ceilings of expenses for local elec- tion candidates, confirming the composition of local election commissions, confirm- ing the time it should take to send ballot boxes in a municipal election from the poll- ing stations to the counting station, or confirming the appointment of the Ministry of Interior’s chief district officers (nai amphoe) or their deputies (palat amphoe) as “electoral assistants” (phuchuailuea kanlueaktang) in local elections.5 The immediate management of electoral details in the constituencies did not rest with the PEC and its office. Rather, PEC-proposed and ECT-appointed constitu- ency committees and their directors handled electoral details, supervised by the PEC and its office.6 They belonged to what the election law in articles 15-22 called “elec- tion officials” (chaophanakngan phutamnoenkanlueaktang). Their roles were further regulated in chapter two of the ECT’s main election regulation.7 Another regulation8 determined the details, such as the qualifications of these directors, their duties, and the method of their recruitment. It also contained equivalent stipulations regarding the constituency committees. Yet another regulation9 fixed the remuneration of a variety of election officials. According to this regulation, the constituency directors were to be paid 9,000 baht per month for a period of two months. The same amount was to be paid to the chairperson of the constituency committee, while its members were to be given 7,500 baht per month for a two-month period. As usual, the ECT office had prepared a manual for the constituency directors and the constituency committee 3 members that explained their many duties.10 Chart 1 represents a simplified version of a chart on the electoral structure found on page 31 of that manual. Chart 1: Organizational levels of electoral management National level ECT Provincial level PEC Constituency committee (one chairperson and four members) Constituency level Constituency director Eight assistants Four financial and adminis- trative officials Center for tallying the votes District-level subcommittee (3 to 5 people); working group for tallying the votes (two people per 40 polling stations); district-level as- sistants and officials for District level election, finance, and ad- ministration (4 to 8 people) Working group for the dis- tribution of material to be used in the polling stations (two people per 10 stations) Polling station committees Polling station level and security officials (12 people) 4 Although neither the constituency directors (phuamnuaikan kanlueaktang pra- cham khet lueaktang) nor the constituency committee (khanakammakan kanlueaktang pracham khet lueaktang) members needed to be civil servants, most of them had such a background. After all, managing an election is an administrative affair that requires some familiarity with official procedures and the use of laws and regulations. Legally, they merely needed to be of Thai nationality by birth, at least 35 years old, and have their housing register in the constituency. Both constituency directors in Chachoeng- sao were also directors of secondary schools. This had the distinct advantage of pro- viding an existing office infrastructure, meeting rooms, and large halls, for example, for counting the advance ballots. During the election, then, the schools housed the sun prasanngan lueaktang pracham khet (election coordination center of the constitu- ency). The ECT appointed Chachoengsao’s constituency directors and committee members, together with a large number of such positions in other provinces, by order no. 286/2550, dated November 1, 2007. The chairperson of the ECT, Apichart Su- kakkhanon, signed this order.11 Similar to the two schools at the constituency level, the regional administra- tion’s district offices established sun prasanngan kanluektang pracham amphoe (elec- tion coordination center of the district). Thus, the ECT turned parts of the amphoe of- fices into temporary sub-constituency levels in its overall structure of election man- agement. The three to five people involved were appointed as “district-level sub- committees” (anukammakan pracham amphoe) by orders issued by the chairpersons of the constituency committees.12 They would be responsible for training the polling station committees, distributing the ballot boxes and electoral equipment to the poll- ing station committees, receiving the ballot boxes etc. from the polling station com- mittees after they had finished counting the votes, and collating the results of the counting. Afterwards, they would send these results on to the constituency center. Both the constituency and the district-level coordination centers were helped in their work by a number of assistants (phuchuai pattipatngan), who were also formally ap- pointed by orders signed by the chairpersons of the constituency committees.13 While the compensation for the sub-committee members was 4,000 baht per month, their assistants received 3,000 baht, supposedly for a two-month period. On November 21, 2007, five days after candidacy registration, the PEC con- ducted its central coordination meeting with 42 members of the constituency commit- tees and their district-level sub-committees. It was presided over by the PEC chairper- 5 son. However, his role was limited to calling out the items on the agenda, while most of the practical responsibility rested with the director of the PEC office and the repre- sentatives from the constituencies. Due to the large number of management issues concerning the elections, the agenda comprised 22 items.14 They included things such as the announcement of polling precincts, the appointment and training of polling sta- tion committees, the announcement of the voter rolls, the withdrawal of voting rights, the preparation of the candidacy announcements and their distribution to designated public places, asking the districts to check the availability of polling booths and ballot boxes, the provision of forms and manuals to the polling station committees, the vote- counting sheets for constituency and proportional candidates, the counting at the poll- ing stations and the sending of the results (including the return of the ballot boxes and used election equipment), the sending of electoral information to all households, the provision of ballot papers and electoral equipment to the polling stations, the organi- zation of campaign stages for the candidates by the constituency committees (two per district), and the compensation to be paid to various officials. The final and lowest level in the electoral organization were the polling pre- cincts (nuai lueaktang), each of which had one polling station (thi lueaktang), and the polling station committees (khanakammakan pracham nuailueaktang). According to article 12 of the election law, the constituency committees determined polling pre- cincts “by having regard for the convenience of the voters.” In rural areas, villages were supposed to be the basic polling precincts, while communities or roads might serve to demarcate polling precincts in urban areas. Normally, a polling precinct was to cover about 800 voters. In this context, one will have to keep in mind that voting lasted from 0800 hours until 1500 hours, or 420 minutes. If all 800 voters turned up, then the polling station committee would have had to process two voters per minute, which is nearly impossible. In practical terms, the constituency committees were in no position to identify suitable polling precincts and polling stations.