Election Aftermath: Reports of Irregularities

Coalition negotiations in limbo until election results are clear

This is an update on the aftermath of the general election, which has been marred by reports of irregularities during the vote-counting process. Pheu Thai has already argued that coalition negotiations should be delayed until these allegations are resolved, so all eyes will now be on watching how the Electoral Commission proceeds with the complaints.

What are the allegations?

We Watch, an election watchdog, alleged in a press conference that they observed several irregularities, including vote buying, discrepancies where the number of ballots did not match the number of voters, inaccurate voter rolls, obstruction of public oversight, confused staff who did not properly check voter IDs or incorrectly marked valid ballots as invalid, along with power outages during the vote count in one district. I am not sure of how widespread all these alleged irregularities were, based on this report.

The case most widely discussed in the media is Chonburi’s first district, where observers have come out in force since last night. The district was won by Bhumjaithai’s Suchart Chomklin (a deputy prime minister), with the current ECT count showing that he is ahead of the People’s Party by around four percent. There was a power outage at some units during the vote count, raising concerns. Tally sheets were reportedly found discarded in the trash, and this has led to demands for a recount. Suchart, for his part, compared the PP to “children throwing a tantrum for sweets” and said he was unconcerned about a recount.

Candidates from other parties have also questioned the election results. In Songkhla’s third district, Democrat candidate Attorney Arm Suwannaraksa raised questions about why there were 112,593 party-list ballots cast in the district, but only 98,923 constituency ballots — a gap of 13,670. Arm asked: “People of district 3, was there anyone who received a pink ballot and took home the green ballot? Where did the ten thousand ballots go?”

I doubt that the “nationwide recount” demanded by angry voters on Twitter will happen, although the EC will decide whether to hold a recount in some constituencies. The scale of Bhumjaithai’s victory also means it is highly unlikely that there will be any change to the overall election result. As Yingcheep Atchanont wrote, “changing the results unit by unit by hundreds or thousands cannot make Natthaphong the winner.” But it is clear that the EC will have to take time to clarify public doubts, and it will likely be unable to certify the election results anytime soon.

And one personal complaint: I do not quite understand what happened with the EC’s live results reporting dashboard, which was painfully slow to update on election night and has been stuck at 94 percent reporting even two days after the election.

Update on coalition negotiations

Publicly things are still quiet on the coalition negotiations front, but we have been hearing mixed reports about what is going on behind the scenes.

• Yesterday, there were rumors that Bhumjaithai was seeking to convince the People’s Party to change its mind and join a Bhumjaithai-led coalition, but PP leader Natthaphong Rueangpanyawut said that the party would not back down on its pledge not to support any Bhumjaithai PM candidate.

• There are also reports that Bhumjaithai is seeking to form a coalition with Pheu Thai and other small parties, in order to exclude Kla Tham, a result of bad blood incurred during the election. This is viable mathematically but I am skeptical that Kla Tham will just let Bhumjaithai leave them in the opposition, and this sounds more like a negotiating tactic.

• Bhumjaithai deputy leader Phiphat Ratchakitprakarn said that he believes an appropriate target for a coalition is around 300 seats.

Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul doesn’t appear to be in a rush to form a government, so it will likely be some time before we have any concrete updates on what the next coalition will look like.