On stealing the election VI

In an earlier post in this series, we were naive in commenting on the allocation of partly list seats. It seems that the Election Commission’s initial bumbling on this was something of a smokescreen to allow for the junta-approved “method” of allocating seats to be used.

The EC has finally “revealed” that it is going to “calculate MP-seat allocation based on a formula that will allow more than 25 parties to be present in the Lower House.”

That “method” is to the advantage of the junta and allows its Palang Pracharath Party to concoct a coalition and drags seats away from anti-junta parties.

The EC’s “public relations team” – apparently it has one –  “revealed” that “the commissioners will stick to the formula proposed to them by the now-defunct charter drafting team.” They claim that this “formula was based on stipulations in the Constitution and the MP election laws…”. But they would claim that, wouldn’t they.

The PR persons reckoned this was  “to give importance to every vote…”. So much importance that a bunch of at least 25 micro-parties that can be easily bought will get one seat based on as little as 30,000 votes, perhaps even less.

The authorities on this scam are some members of the junta’s hand-picked Constitution Drafting Committee.

While the EC rigs the election result for the election rigging junta and its buddies, it is now using law suits to silence critics. Reports mention Nutta Mahattana and

Meanwhile, despite fierce criticism against its questionable performance, the EC has gone ahead and filed defamation lawsuits against political activist Nuttaa Mahuttana and Sirote Klampaiboon but it seems there may be up to a dozen others who are receiving the EC’s attention.

It seems pretty clear that the junta is successfully stealing its own “election.”We can expect that after the king’s coronation that a Palang Pracharath coalition will be announced. After that look for junta ministers simply continuing their current jobs.

Nothing much will have changed. The election will have been successfully rigged and stolen, pretty much in broad daylight. And, yet again, the people’s voice will have been ignored. Are we too pessimistic?