Thailand’s February 8 election stunned some political pundits and defied national polls that predicted that the People’s Party would gain a larger percentage of the vote than the eventual winner, Prime Minister Anutin Charnavirakul’s Bhumjaithai party. However, just hours after the results were revealed, a mini crisis of trust emerged, as more than 300 people began a protest at Rajamangala University of Technology Thanyaburi, a polling station in Pathum Thani province.
Suspicions were raised when closed-circuit television cameras were switched off and covered with black bags during the voting process, but were not turned back on when the counting began. When a recount was demanded and later implemented, the Election Commission of Thailand (ECT) declared that the result was unaffected and confirmed a Bhumjaithai win in that contested district.
In a democratic system with transparent and accountable institutions, a “free and fair” election is achieved when irregularities are minimized to the point where variations in the result are infinitesimal and do not affect the outcome, or shake confidence in public trust. Unfortunately, the ECT is seemingly incapable of delivering a result that sheds its image as a weak and corrupt institution. Inevitably, the scattered protests ballooned into a national affair and the ECT has become inept in its handling of public criticism. It initially dismissed the Pathum Thani result as “fake news” and has been slow to consent to several recount pleas, including those of the People’s Party, which has sought answers in 18 constituencies.
When irregularities spread in Chonburi province, people gathered at a badminton court at the Muang Chon Buri municipal office and found that ballot boxes were not sealed properly, tied with plastic rope rather than with cable ties. Complaints are piling up, with 113 complaints of vote-buying now reported. Adding insult to public injury, it was discovered that election materials, including ballot boxes emblazoned with the ECT logo can be bought online.
Competent, trusted institutions do not surround themselves with chaos by making irrational and dubious decisions that cast public doubt on their capacity. Japan’s much-criticized gift of 10,000 Japanese-made ballot boxes to Cambodia is a case in point. While Cambodian elections were fraudulent and widely expected to yield a predictable result, Tokyo’s $7.5 million gift of sturdy replacement boxes of those it donated more than 20 years ago instantly boosted Cambodia’s electoral integrity, despite the fact that its elections are mostly non-competitive. If only the ECT were just as proactive as the Japanese were in Cambodia in making investments in Thailand’s electoral future.
Another two indicators of institutional integrity include independence and the perception that the institution remains neutral, regardless of the outcome. The ECT has done little to clear up perceptions that it has moved away from being a puppet institution, as it was under the National Council for Peace and Order set up after the 2014 coup. The ECT literally acted as an agent of the state, putting far more pressure on the Pheu Thai and Future Forward parties during the 2019 election than those aligned with the military. In 2024, the same bias was clear in the ECT’s request to the Constitutional Court that Future Forward’s successor, the Move Forward Party, be dissolved.
In its report on the 2019 election, the Asian Network for Free Elections (ANFREL) warned that Thailand’s counting process raised serious concerns. It warned that the transparency of the vote tabulation and consolidation operations cast doubt on the process, as external observers, political party agents, and members of the press were not provided access, and the counting of advanced ballots and the presentation of their breakdown were not publicized sufficiently.
ANFREL found that uncounted ballots, stored in a warehouse, were only disclosed after expressions of concern and suggested the ECT violated the spirit of the 2012 Bangkok Declaration on Free and Fair Elections. It noted that “without the access required to fully scrutinize the process, from the moment the first ballot is cast until results are made official,” it was difficult for the organization to “produce a definitive statement on the trustworthiness of an electoral result as a whole.”
Even though ANFREL reported marked improvement in the May 2023 election, this month’s polls closely resemble those of 2019, which raises the question: how has the ECT regressed so quickly in such a short period of time? The only solution to the brewing crisis is a national recount with clearly communicated procedures and public monitoring of the process. There can be no “men in black” at polling stations, as was reported in Si Sa Ket province.
Napon Jatusripitak, a political scientist at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore, recently posted a spreadsheet documenting the discrepancies between the number of party list and constituency ballots in many districts. The obvious gap in the numbers demands an explanation, which can only be accomplished through a closely-monitored national recount.
The ECT has been for too long associated with corrupt practices, systemic dysfunction, and a manipulative military-backed government that denied Thailand democracy for more than a decade. Over that time, it has become next of kin to chaos. Wholesale changes are needed and must become a priority for Anutin before his popular mandate is overwhelmed by voter anger and discontent.
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