Vote buying still rampant, say activists

General News - Saturday December 22, 2007

RACE TO PARLIAMENT

Vote buying still rampant, say activists

SUPAWADEE INTHAWONG & SUBIN KHUENKAEW

The Election Commission's (EC) battle to stamp out vote buying has fallen short, say many grassroots activists, who have accused politicians linked to the dissolved Thai Rak Thai party of using local administration organisations to buy votes for their new political allies. Authorities have placed a lot of emphasis on controlling suspected vote buying in former Thai Rak Thai strongholds in the Northeast such as Buri Ram.

However Niran Kultanan, secretary to the people's power centre of Buri Ram Rajabhat University, says attempts to stamp out the practice are useless, as the buying techniques are too sophisticated for the EC to track.

According to Mr Niran, although Buri Ram native and former key Thai Rak Thai executive Newin Chidchob has remained outside his province and is being very closely followed, tambon administration organisations (TAOs) are acting on ''someone's'' behalf.

TAOs, according to Mr Niran, have been organising an unusually high number of sporting events in the run-up to the election.

The organisations, known to be closely linked to the powerful Chidchob family, are spending their budgets on sporting events, with money going on allowances for competitors, training sessions and as prizes, he alleged.

He said the EC could not check the spending of TAOs because they had total freedom in the allocation of budgets and had not been publicly encouraging people to vote for any particular party. However, people taking part in the events already knew which party wanted their votes, he added.

In other words, these local administration organisations are working to encourage people to vote for particular parties on behalf of politicians, he said. And the organisations that deliver victories will be repaid much more than the sum they advanced, he said.

Vote buying has also allegedly been carried out through other local government agencies, including non-formal educational units. Rewards have been offered in the forms of excessive budgets to be allocated and promotion for officials concerned, he said.

In Chiang Rai, another former stronghold of Thaksin Shinawatra's Thai Rak Thai party, political canvassers have even made gentlemen's agreements that they would pay for people's votes after the election, according to activist Suwadee Thanubamrungsat.

Local people trusted political canvassers enough to agree to vote first and get paid later, she said.

Votes have also been silently bought through unusually high salaries for rice harvesters, according to Winai Lertratanawong, an EC investigator in Chiang Rai.

Bangkok Post