Thai Rak Thai party targeted for dissolution
Posted :8 Hour,27 minutes Ago
The embattled Election Commission ( EC) of Thailand Tuesday night passed the buck to the Office of the Attorney General (OAG) on whether to dissolve the ruling Thai Rak Thai Party, handing over all legal documents and evidence of investigation to the OAG.
According to the reports of the local newspaper Nation on Wednesday, EC did so without making any specific comment or opinion on the evidence and documents.
The report -- produced by an EC subcommittee -- indicated that the Thai Rak Thai had violated the law by hiring small political parties to run in the April 2 election and subsequent rounds of voting.
It allegedly did this so its candidates would be able to take seats without having to win 20 percent of the vote -- the minimum required to win the seat if they had run unopposed.
Attorney-General Pachara Yuthithamdamrong said his office would determine if it would forward the charges to the Constitutional Court for a final ruling.
The EC had not specified any legal grounds for dissolving the Thai Rak Thai Party so his office would have to strictly follow Sections 66 and 67 of the Political Party Act to determine whether the party violated the law and whether it should be dissolved, Pachara was quoted as saying by the newspaper. Chaikasem Nithisiri, deputy chief of the OAG, was appointed to chair the committee that will examine the legal documents and other evidence from the EC.
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