The Pheu Thai Party opened its Election Fraud Protection Centre yesterday, with Pol Maj Gen Surasit Sangkhaphong — the former governor of the Government Lottery Office — as its leader.
The head of the party’s legal team, Chusak Sirinil, yesterday said the centre’s main missions would be fraud protection, the inspection of the Election Commission (EC), and the inspection of authorities and the public sector.
Pol Maj Gen Surasit said the centre has come up with methods that allow their members to report election irregularities in real-time through an official Line account.
Prasert Chantararuangthong, the party’s secretary-general, in his capacity as head of its Election Operation Centre, said the party had expected the EC to conduct the election in the most transparent way possible.
However, Mr Prasert said the EC’s errors so far during preparations for the election, such as an error made while sending ballots to voters abroad, and mismatched pamphlet publications, have kept surfacing, affecting voters’ awarenes of the election.
To help combat fraud, Mr Prasert suggested every party send their inspectors to the election booths to scrutinise the advance election on May 7.
He said the party also sent the complaints directly to the EC. They mainly focused on seven questions regarding election-related irregularities.
Those seven questions centred on ballot management, including the number of published ballots, where to store them, and how they will be spread, as well as the party’s requirement of inspectors from elected political parties.
Regarding the party’s notice on irregularities, he said Pheu Thai is questioning the EC’s management of seven million spare ballots, including how it will manage and track them.
In the meantime, the EC has invited 2,113 media representatives to check its guidelines for reporting on fraud, for the sake of transparency.