PUBLISHED: 24 Dec 2024 at 04: 10
Chawal Pholmuangdee, the Women’s Party’s MP for Chon Buri, has been charged by the Election Commission with breaking the MP Election Act by providing an imperfect list of his plan bills for the election next year.
Candidates who participated in the May 14 vote were required to tell the EC how many fighting they had done between March 20 and May 15 of last year. According to the poll agency, Mr. Chawal claimed to have spent 6, 000 baht to run campaign advertisements on various social media platforms in a statement released to the EC. He became a People’s Party member after the Move Forward Party ( MFP ) was disbanded.
But, the EC added, an investigation found that running an advert on Twitter alone would have costed him 9, 347.51 baht. The MP’s Instagram page was run by two individuals who told EC researchers that they had forgotten to review some costs to the MP before he made his statement. But, the MP should’ve double-checked the record himself when filing them with officials, the EC said.
Mr Chawal, however, said he wasn’t conscious of some of the finer details of the deal, which unfortunately drove up the cost of running the ads.
The EC claimed to have sufficient evidence to refute the claims against Mr. Chawal, who represents Constituency 3 in Chon Buri, in a blog on its web on Monday. In order to start proceedings against Mr. Chawal, the EC did protest the Appeals Court, which hears cases involving the operational aspects of the general election.
Mr. Chawal could receive up to two years in jail and/or a fine of up to 40, 000 ringgit if found guilty of intentionally deceiving authorities by providing an incomplete list of campaign costs. He may even forfeit his five-year voter registration privileges.
Separately, PP head Natthaphong Ruengpanyawut described the crime as “minor”. He claimed that the gap was only a few thousand bass in size. ” People are watching to see if the claim is an act of political intimidation”, he added.