BANGKOK, April 24 (TNA) – The Election Commission issued an orange card to Surapol Kiatchaiyakorn, Pheu Thai Party’s candidate who won the election in Constituency 8 of Chiang Mai province, for alleged vote-buying.
The EC yesterday gave the orange card to suspend Mr Surapol’s right to run in any election for one year after its provincial investigators found that he had promised to give benefits and thus violated the organic law on elections.
The resolution caused the EC to stage an election rerun in the constituency because Mr Surapol won the March 24 general election with 52,165 votes.
The EC will exclude the votes from its calculation of party list MPs for political parties. The commission will also ask the Supreme Court to ban his electoral rights including MP candidacy.
In the March 24 election, the first runner-up in Chiang Mai’s Constituency 8 was Palang Pracharath Party’s Naret Thamrongtipayakul who got 39,221 votes, followed by Future Forward Party’s Srinual Boonlue with 29,556 votes. (TNA)
