Democrat Party electoral fraud case

According to Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya, the Democrat Party and its government are squeaky clean. Both he and Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva seemed confident regarding the legal processes currently in train that look into the party’s campaign finances.

Well might they be confident for they have the support of the politicized Department of Special Investigation (see below) and now, as reported in The Nation, elements of the Election Commission are speaking in favor of the party.

An adviser to the EC “told the Constitution Court yesterday that the Democrat Party was not involved in ‘invalid’ receipts related to Bt29 million given by the EC for election campaign ads.” The adviser, ML Prateep Charoonroj, appeared as a witness “presented by the Democrat Party.” He chaired the EC panel that investigated the party and he rejected the charges as he claimed the party did not approve allegedly false receipts.

That a “representative of the attorney-general pointed to signatures by the Democrats approving copies of the receipts” counted not for Prateep as these were “only approval for copies of receipts and did not mean the party acknowledged they were invalid receipts.” The attorney general’s representative also pointed to discrepancies between budget and the retroactively-issued receipts.

Prateep, however, claimed that he “believed the party had no corrupt intent. It used the funds received from the EC for the poll campaign boards and the boards were actually produced.” To PPT, this seems like pretty flimsy evidence when it tries to brush aside written evidence in favor of a “belief.”

At the same time, the Democrat Party’s lawyers also want DSI head Tharit Pengdit to testify and the court agreed to accept written testimony from him. Tharit is on record as supporting this party on this case (and just about everything else).

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