ELECTION COMMISSION: Ubon Democrat gets yellow card

Published on February 17, 2005

Vitoon distributed rice, cash to voters; can contest re-run

Vitoon Nambutr, Democrat Party candidate for Ubon Ratchathani’s Constituency 3, yesterday became the first unofficial election winner to be handed a “yellow card” by the Election Commission, EC secretary-general Ekkachai Waroonprapha said.

The EC called a new round of voting on February 20 in the constituency, which Vitoon can still contest.

The election agency believed Thai Rak Thai candidate Kowit Thammanuchit’s accusation that Vitoon had violated electoral law by distributing rice and cash to voters and promising to give them more benefits if he were elected.

Vitoon earlier produced witnesses to support his argument that the rice was distributed to disaster victims before the general election was called, and he had not promised anything other than government-funded projects.

Election commissioners continued their meeting until late last night to look into complaints of electoral fraud against a number of candidates with the highest number of votes in their constituencies.

Four unofficial winners – three Democrats and one from Thai Rak Thai – explained themselves before commissioners yesterday.

Seven more unofficial winners facing electoral-fraud allegations are scheduled to testify before the commissioners today, Ekkachai said.

On Monday and Tuesday, six other candidates testified before the EC to defend themselves against electoral-fraud allegations.

Three are from Thai Rak Thai, two are Democrats and one is from Chat Thai.

Meanwhile, a political activist yesterday called on the EC to form a neutral committee to take charge of the investigation into the ballot-burning case in Angthong province.

“The Election Commission should assign neutral investigators to uncover evidence relating to the burning of ballots, which is suspected to be a scam to fix the Angthong election results,” said Campaign for Popular Democracy secretary-general Suriyasai Katasila.

Suriyasai urged the EC to delay the endorsement of votes nationwide until it could clear up lingering doubts surrounding the Angthong incident and other alleged campaign violations.

He suggested that the neutral committee include election officials, senators, leading social figures, media representatives, academics and democracy activists.

“What happened in Angthong could be evidence of a larger fraud to fix the voting outcome nationwide, and I strongly advise the EC to get to the bottom of the issue,” he said.

Atthayuth Butrsripoom

The Nation

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