Academic echoes call
The three remaining Election Commission members who have defied all calls to resign had lost their legitimacy to manage a new election because of a number of transgressions, a caretaker senator claimed at a Chulalongkorn University seminar yesterday.
"I have no idea why they haven't resigned although they've done wrong all the way during the past two years," Karoon Sai-ngarm said.Karoon, a member of a Senate ad hoc panel on graft suppression, said the panel had discovered in EC documents instances in which the commission had disqualified candidates, but the decisions were not unanimous. That violated the law, as the disqualification of a candidate had to be made unanimously. He said the EC even changed lists of candidates who were found cheating at the last minute. It resulted in some errant candidates getting away without punishment. The four sitting EC members were placed in a precarious position when the Constitution Court invalidated the April 2 poll. That led to demands for their resignation after allegations were made they sided with Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. One commissioner has quit, but the others insist they did their best to manage the election. Weerayut Chokchaimadon, The Nation
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