How to “win” an “election” II

It isn’t just PPT wondering about the desperation rigging of the junta’s already rigged “election.” Khaosod examines some of the concerns:

As the junta backs efforts to rewrite laws, overturn norms and stack the deck with loyalists, whispers that it could attempt to subvert next election are growing louder.

PPT hasn’t been whispering, we’ve been shouting for many months.

But fear not, the man who became secretary general of the Election Commission after his predecessor was fired by the junta leader, Police Col. Jarungvith Phumma says his “independent” agency won’t be “involved in manipulating the vote in favor of junta leader Gen. Prayuth Chan-ocha, who seems intent on remaining in power.”

This is the EC that has seen “the dismissal of all commission members, the firing of its outspoken former chairman and a bid to select voting inspectors by junta-appointed lawmakers.”

And, as Khaosod points out:

The only time the public has cast a ballot in over four years was far from a healthy democratic exercise. For the August 2016 referendum on the new junta-backed constitution, campaigning against it was criminalized, virtually no monitors were allowed to observe and an unusual vote-tallying system was put in place.

Junta opponents worry about “bogus voters, tallies or trashed ballots.” Others point to “false vote counting at polling stations, ghost voters and tampering with the electronic process of aggregating the final vote count.”

While “Pongsak Chanon, the Thai coordinator for the Bangkok-based Asian Network for Free Elections” thinks “the proliferation of smartphones and cameras” prevent outright fraud, we think he’s wrong. The junta will do whatever is required to get the result it wants. When he says “it’s hard to cheat systematically” he’s forgetting all the rigging that’s already gone on, with more to come. Think of Cambodia.

Those who think the EC wouldn’t dare engage in massive fraud are living in a fantasy world. They have already engaged in a massive manipulation of voting rules.And, the junta is certainly prepared to do whatever it feels needed. Think of the constitution referendum.

The elite forces that have manipulated the judiciary and murdered with impunity has little to fear. At present, the junta’s plan is to “win” without being ballot box stuffing gross, but, if necessary, it will do what it thinks necessary.