They believe the panel is moving in the wrong direction in terms of developing the political system.

The panel decided on Thursday to scrap the single-MP constituency system to pave way for a multiple-MP constituency system. Under the latter, each constituency would be larger and, for example, the two or three candidates polling the highest number of votes would be elected.

"The panel's initiative is not practical when compared with reality," said Akaphol Sorrasuchart, deputy Mahachon Party leader.

The problem, he said, was that the panel would allow only one vote for one candidate, although the constituency would need, say, three candidates to get into the House.

Although the proposed system is similar to the upper-house elections under the defunct 1997 Constitution, the condition of the previous charter was that the senatorial candidates did not belong to any political party.

As a political party would surely run its campaign with the same number of candidates as seats in a constituency, candidates of the same party would be competing among themselves instead of being united to ensure that they win the seat, Akaphol argued.

Charan's drafting subcommittee claims that the change in the electoral system is aimed at reducing the chances of vote-buying.

Democrat Party deputy leader Alongkorn Pollabutr said the idea to make constituencies larger to prevent vote-buying was wrong. The best way to get rid of vote-buying lay with the Election Commission, which needed to take tough action against wrongdoers.

He believes the single-MP

constituency system is the right principle for the electoral system, with small constituencies bringing MPs closer to the local people.

"The panel is correcting something that has not gone wrong," he said.

Somsak Prissananunthakul, a deputy Chat Thai Party leader, believes the new charter should be stricter than its predecessor of 1997, in which the lower house comprised party-list and single-MP constituency systems.

As the gap between local people and government officials was wide, he said the former used constituency MPs to pass their needs to the government.

If more than one MP represented a constituency, local people would be confused about which MP they should consult, he said.

Somsak also disagreed with a proposal that the party-list system should be cancelled. He said the system was the only channel for experts of various fields to enter politics, as they were not used to door-to-door campaigns.

The House should have a combination of experts and those whom the people could ask for help directly, he added.

Meanwhile, Kanin Boonsuwan, who was among those drafting the 1997 Constitution, said scrapping the single-MP constituency system would make the electoral system more awkward for nothing.

He said the competition among MP candidates would be fiercer, not only among candidates from different parties but also among those from the same party.

"There's no reason for this. What problems would the election regulation solve? It will only cause conflicts among politicians, even in the same party," he said.

A political party would field the same number of candidates as MPs for each constituency, while each candidate would try hard to win the vote.

Moreover, after the election, an elected MP would try to shift the burden to other MPs in the same constituency when people ask for help as they would not know who had voted for whom, he said.

Kanin said it was now standard that a voter should vote for only one candidate. The elected candidate for each constituency has to take care of people in the constituency.

Under the proposed new system, a candidate would have to spend more on campaigning to get votes from the larger constituency, regardless of vote-buying, he said.

He added that this was different from in previous Senate elections, as senatorial candidates were not allowed to campaign.

Weerayut Chokchaimadon,

Kornchanok Raksaseri

The Nation