Democrats to petition EC

Published on February 15, 2005

The Democrat Party yesterday announced it would petition the Election Commission to check whether the number of printed ballots matched the number of votes tallied.

“The three opposition parties, Democrat, Chat Thai and Mahachon, have cause to suspect irregularities in vote tallying,” said Yuthapong Jarassathien, an election candidate from Maha Sarakham, who is in charge of the Democrat party’s campaign violations monitoring centre.

Chat Thai candidate Sanpanyu Siripai said he suspected that many sacks containing cast ballots had been switched before the tallying.

“In Maha Sarakham, I saw a commotion when a convoy of 15 cars transporting the ballots arrived at the vote tallying centre. I believe many ballots were tampered with,” Sanpanyu said.

Sanpanyu said he saw many soldiers and local officials handling the ballots even though they were not authorised personnel.

EC secretary general Ekkachai Warunprapha said his commission would look into the alleged discrepancy between printed ballots and the tallied ones.

“I am sceptical that such a discrepancy could happen, particularly in the Northeast,” he said.

Winning candidates in northeastern constituencies led their rivals by a large margin and there was no reason for them to fix the votes in order to boost their victories, he said.

Thai Rak Thai Party deputy secretary general Phumtham Wetchayachai said the Democrats are trying to sow doubts about the voting results even though they did not have evidence to back up their claims.

Post your comment to this story here