If someone is called thick-skinned (the correct transliteration should be "thick-faced"), the suggestion is that he or she has no sense of shame whatsoever. Thus the old Thai saying: "You can beat anyone except thick-skinned people". Indeed, how can you make shameless people distinguish between right and wrong? It's not much different from flogging a dead horse, is it?

For months now, this odious label has been applied to members of the Election Commission (EC), so much so that they have come to epitomise what critics describe as "political thick skin". Several vernacular newspapers have stopped using EC chairman Pol General Vasana Puermlarp's first name in headlines. Punning on his name, they instead refer to him as "Brother Na" or "Brother Thick Skin".

Probably no other public or political figures have been subject to more virulent and sustained criticism than the election commissioners. Caretaker Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra is, of course, an exception. In fact, they have been treated by the media as being two of a kind.

Like any other independent institution, the EC can function only as long as it can convince the public of its credibility and legitimacy. But as events of the past several months have demonstrated, it has neither of these.

The credibility of the commission was called into question long before the outbreak of the current political turmoil. Vasana and his team were more often than not seen as operating in the shadow of the ruling Thai Rak Thai Party. Any vestige of apparent independence was quashed by what was widely seen as the EC's collusion with the Thaksin administration to fix a date for the snap election that would give Thai Rak Thai an unfair advantage.

The April 2 election turned out to be one of Thailand's biggest political farces. It was intended more as a political whitewash for the beleaguered prime minister than as a genuine democratic exercise. The EC cannot possibly deny culpability for sanctioning the problematic election date with the full knowledge that the poll would be anything but honest and fair.

The legally contentious election, which was boycotted by the three main opposition parties and which produced only partial results, plunged the country into a deeper crisis. Unperturbed by the deadlock, the EC defied all political propriety by calling by-elections and allowing failed candidates of small parties to register in new constituencies.

What the EC was doing was tantamount to helping the Thai Rak Thai achieve its goal of one-party rule, but the commissioners seemed impervious to the chorus of criticism against them.

And even after the judges of the country's three highest courts declared the April 2 election null and void, the EC members still didn't find it necessary to show any responsibility and ignored mounting calls for them to resign. Vasana insisted repeatedly that he and his colleagues had done nothing wrong or illegal.

Compounding the situation, the EC is also vehemently resisting pressure for it to act against the Thai Rak Thai for allegedly breaking the election law by bribing smaller parties to field candidates in the April 2 election and subsequent by-elections.

The EC dropped all pretence of political neutrality when it scoffed at the findings of its own investigation panel that implicated senior figures of Thai Rak Thai Party in the alleged payoffs. The aim of the alleged bribery by the ruling party was to escape the 20-per-cent minimum vote requirement in several constituencies in the South by having the little known parties put up a phoney contest.

The irony is that the EC has already found the small parties guilty of accepting the bribes and has proposed to have them dissolved as punishment. But for some reason the agency is shrinking from taking the crucial step to penalise the "mastermind".

From all appearances, the three remaining election commissioners are oblivious to the political crisis that is gripping the country. And it's a crisis that they have been largely instrumental in creating.

It's rather unusual, even unprecedented, that the judiciary finds it necessary to intervene in a political situation. But the severity of the current crisis definitely requires some sense, which has not been evident in the political realm.

When Supreme Court President Charnchai Likitjittha said last week that the election commissioners had lost their legitimacy, he was in a way handing down a verdict, albeit an informal one, on their future. It was an indisputable snub to their attempt to organise another general election, tentatively scheduled for October 15.

Yet, in his chat with the media at his country home in Chanthaburi on Sunday, EC chairman Vasana showed no signs of repentance. He insisted that the commissioners needed to stay on because they have tasks to complete, including a series of local elections he claimed that only they were capable of organising.

Public opinion and the judges' indirect warning that, with its legal status now a big question mark, the EC is treading on thin ice apparently meant nothing to Vasana. Even the spectre of violence resulting from the continuing political stalemate exacerbated by the EC's stubbornness was also completely lost on him.

While there is nothing unusual about the media pinning the "thick-skinned" label on politicians or public figures, this might be the first time that the lack of a sense of shame is pulling the country down the drain.

Thepchai Yong