dummy candidates paid to run; 20 percent rule

Fraud charges add to poll fears

The PM's desperate bid to re-legitimise his rule will only reinforce the divide in society

...Democrats have presented witnesses and are known to have acquired some key material evidence.

...A virtual "one-party" election is technically allowed under the Constitution, provided that the sole party contesting has enough support nationwide to prove its worth. This is not the case with Thai Rak Thai, which surely faces an impossible task in winning the required minimum of 20 per cent of support from eligible voters in certain constituencies. The 20 per cent rule will be invoked for every constituency where only one party is running, and it should prove to be an insurmountable barrier in major anti-Thaksin zones like southern Thailand.

To get around the 20 per cent rule, Thai Rak Thai needs competitors in all these areas. Not surprisingly, allegations have been flooding in about "hired candidates" running for small parties. Over the weekend, Suthep Thaugsuban, secretary-general of the Democrat Party, detailed how key figures of Thai Rak Thai were busying implementing a scheme to beat the rule. Some little-known figures were presented before the media and they "confessed" that they had been offered money to run in the snap election.

Shrugging off the ruling party's threat to launch civil and criminal suits, Suthep insisted he had evidence to prove the alleged election fraud and challenged Thai Rak Thai to bring the case to court. He claimed that two key Thai Rak Thai leaders had met at the party's headquarters with four others to devise ways to help a group of small political parties field candidates in constituencies in four central and 14 southern provinces. According to Suthep, the problem for Thai Rak Thai was that all the MP candidates to be fielded by these small parties had to be members of those parties for at least 90 days prior to the application. As a result, the plan was to replace the names of about 500 real members of political parties with new ones so that they would be eligible to run in the election. Suthep also alleged that a computer disc containing the Election Commission's database of political party members was provided to operators of the scheme so names could be changed electronically.

...what characterises this snap election are trademarks of Thaksin's rule - the alleged use of "nominees", the tendency to use money to solve all problems in complete disregard for the consequences and the mentality that legal barriers are there to be breached, not respected.

...Thaksin, in trying to prove to Thais why ... they can still trust him, is doing something that will bring the exact opposite results.