Supreme Court disqualifies Karun

Published on February 4, 2005

Thai Rak Thai has seen a likely House seat from Bangkok Constituency 14 slip from its grasp after the Supreme Court yesterday disqualified its candidate for not having sufficient education credentials.

The ruling party was pushed to the sidelines after Karun Hosakul was booted out of the race.

The seat in the Don Muang area has now turned into a two-horse race between Chat Thai candidate Janista Liewchalermwong, who has emerged as the favourite, and Democrat Surasak Songtrairattanakun.

Advance votes cast for Karun on January 29-30 were automatically invalidated upon the cancellation of his candidacy, but popular votes cast for his party will not be affected.

The Supreme Court disqualified Karun after Sukhothai Thammathirat Open University cancelled his degree on January 29.

Karun graduated in 2001, but the university has just uncovered what it describes as his flawed enrolment record. He allegedly bought his vocational certificate.

The court said it had no cause to suspect foul play in the university’s decision against Karun.

Court secretary Somchit Thongsri said the court had also examined the fact that Karun had a master’s degree from Ramkhamhaeng University.

“As Karun had used his bachelor’s degree to qualify for the graduate studies, he could not rely on his second degree to maintain his candidacy, because his graduate credentials vanished after the cancellation of his first degree,” Somchit said.

Reacting to the verdict, Karun said he had no choice but to accept the court’s decision.

“I have to accept my fate, although I regret seeing my campaign go to waste after months of preparation,” he said.

He added that he would continue to solicit votes for Thai Rak Thai.

Election commissioner Prinya Nakchudtree said that his agency would drop Karun from the list of candidates and voters in his constituency would be informed.

Prinya said he did not think Karun had intended to file false information with the Election Commission, as he used his bachelor’s and master’s degrees as educational credentials when registering his candidacy and not the problematic vocational certificate.

Post your comment to this story here