ELECTORAL FRAUD: Survey unearths an increase in money for votes

Published on February 4, 2005

Poll of community leaders estimates almost Bt10 billion will be spent on vote buying ahead of election

A survey of community leaders has discovered worsening vote buying ahead of Sunday’s general election, with almost Bt10 billion estimated to be changing hands, according to results released by Abac Poll yesterday.

Analysts of the survey estimate that about Bt9.75 billion will be spent in buying support from eligible voters, more than double the estimated Bt4.59 billion in the previous survey between January 7-13, said Professor Srisakdi Charmonman, the chairman of Assumption University’s Abac Poll Research Institute.

More than three in four of those surveyed described the vote-buying situation in their constituencies as “severe” - that is more than Bt20 million had been spent in each of their constituencies. In the previous survey early last month, about 47 per cent of the respondents viewed the vote-buying problem in their constituencies as severe.

The remaining 23 per cent of the respondents in the second survey described the vote-buying situation in their constituencies as “medium” - with between Bt10 million and Bt20 million being spent in each constituency. That was compared to 32 per cent in the previous survey.

There were no respondents who viewed the vote-buying problem in their constituencies as “light or no problem at all”, compared to 21 per cent in the previous survey.

The community leaders surveyed estimated that an average of Bt513 was being spent on each voter, compared to Bt344 in the previous survey.

More than one in three of the respondents said they believed massive vote buying was among the greatest concerns for the upcoming election.

Other problems described as worrying included voters’ lack of understanding about how to cast ballots, disputes between rival candidates, and suspected bias by election officials.

However, more than 66 per cent of those surveyed said they believed the upcoming election would be clean and fair, compared to 30 per cent who pointed to the opposite.

The survey was conducted among 13,836 community leaders in all 400 constituencies throughout the country between January 24 and Wednesday.

More than 80 per cent of the respondents were either village heads or kamnans (the chief of a tambon).

Data were collected through questionnaires and interviews.

A separate survey by Abac Poll estimated that Bt7.1 billion would be spent in gambling on the results of Sunday’s election, Srisakdi said.

More than 68 per cent of the respondents said they had no interest in gambling on the election results while 14 per cent said they did. The remainder said they were unsure whether to gamble or not.

More than 60 per cent of those surveyed said they believed the gamblers would bet with friends or relatives and another 30 per cent said bets would be placed with illegal bookmakers.

That survey was conducted among 12,929 people in 25 provinces, including Bangkok and the major provinces of all regions, from January 21 through Wednesday.

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