06BANGKOK2047 AND NOW THE REAL FUN BEGINS – THAILAND POLITICAL UPDATE
“59431″,”4/5/2006 11:49″,”06BANGKOK2047″,
“Embassy Bangkok”,”CONFIDENTIAL”,”",”VZCZCXRO2916
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O 051149Z APR 06
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TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 7698
INFO RUEHZS/ASSOCIATION OF SOUTHEAST ASIAN NATIONS
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SECTION 01 OF 02 BANGKOK 002047
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E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/06/2016
TAGS: PGOV, PHUM, TH
SUBJECT: AND NOW THE REAL FUN BEGINS – THAILAND POLITICAL
UPDATE
REF: A. BANGKOK 2005 – THAKSIN SAYS: \”I WON\”
B. BANGKOK 1546 – DELPHIC ORACLES AND BLACK MAGIC
C. BANGKOK 1872 – PALACE REITERATES – LEAVE ME OUT
Classified By: Ambassador Ralph L. Boyce for reason 1.4 (b) (d)
1. (C) SUMMARY. Thaksin\’s decision to step down as Prime
Minister is a major step toward resolving the current
political crisis, but a host of technical obstacles still
remain. These issues revolve primarily around the ability to
seat a new House of Representatives. With Thaksin\’s
departure, one major hurdle has been overcome. The question
now is whether the various camps can bridge their serious
differences to find creative solutions to these remaining
obstacles. END SUMMARY.
FILLING CONSTITUENCY-BASED SEATS
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2. (SBU) The first challenge to overcome in the wake of
Thaksin\’s announcement is finding a way to seat a new House
of Representatives. Following the April 2 elections, 39
constituency-based seats remained vacant, most of them in the
south and most of them because of the 20 percent rule. The
Election Commission (EC) had initially announced a second
round of elections to be held on Sunday, April 9 (see Reftel
A). Shortly before Thaksin made his address to the nation
yesterday, the EC ruled that it would allow new candidates to
register for the vacant seats and that it would postpone the
second round of elections until Sunday, April 23.
Registration for candidates will be open from April 8-9.
3. (C) The Democrat party is still considering whether it
should challenge the EC decision to allow new candidates to
enter the race. There is some debate that the decision may
violate the Election Law. Regardless, the Democrats (who are
traditionally strong in 38 of the 39 open constituencies)
made clear today that they will not register candidates for
the second round. This means that Thai Rak Thai (TRT) will
need to look for other parties to field candidates in those
38 districts in order to avoid the pitfall of running
uncontested again (see Reftel A). (Note: the other two
opposition parties that formed an alliance with the
Democrats, Chart Thai and Mahachon, have yet to announce
whether they will register candidates for the April 23
election. End note.) It is also conceivable that TRT will bow
out of some constituencies and look for two smaller parties
to register candidates. But to reiterate: getting additional
candidates is critical, because it is widely assumed that any
TRT candidate running unopposed will not succeed in breaking
the 20 percent threshold.
FILLING THE PARTY-LIST SEATS
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4. (C) The next snag is that one of the 100 party-list seats
will likely remain open once the constituency seats are
filled. In order to win a party-list seat, a political party
must receive at least 5 percent of the total nationwide vote.
At this point, TRT is the only party to reach this mark;
none of the other parties fielding party-list candidates are
even close. The problem is that TRT only has 99 candidates
registered on its party-list. It originally registered 100
candidates, but one member left TRT after registration closed
in order to join the monastery (see Reftel B). Since TRT
only has 99 candidates registered, one of the 100 seats will
remain vacant.
5. (C) To date, the EC has announced no plans to reopen
registration for party-list candidates. Sources within the
EC inform us that in the event one of these seats remains
vacant after all the constituency seats are filled, the EC
will petition the Constitutional Court (CC) to allow the
House of Representatives to be seated with only 499 members.
This would challenge a precedent set by the CC in 2001 when
it ruled that the Senate could not be seated until all 200
members were elected (see Reftel C). However, Justice
Nopadol Hengjareon, a judge on the CC, told Polcouns today
that the court might rule differently on this occasion.
(Note: One possible line of reasoning: the 2001 ruling
pertained to Senate seats which are constituency-based.
Since party-list seats do not represent constituencies of
voters, the CC might rule that the House could be seated
without the full complement of party-list members. End note.)
PAD\’s PETITION TO ANNUL THE ELECTION
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6. (U) On April 3, the People\’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD)
filed a petition with the Central Administrative Court to
have the April 2 elections nullified, claiming that the EC
had violated voter privacy (see Reftel A). The complaint is
based on an EC directive to reposition voting booths in a way
that made it possible for poll officials and members of the
public to see how voters marked their ballots. This petition
is working its way through the Administrative Court. Also on
April 3, the Asian Network for Free Elections (ANFREL)
submitted a similar complaint to the United Nations High
Commissioner for Human Rights. The ANFREL complaint alleged
that the EC violated Article 21 of the UN Declaration of
Human Rights which guarantees the right to vote in privacy.
Thus far, UNHCHR has not issued a public response.
7. (C) COMMENT: In the wake of Thaksin\’s resignation, it
remains unclear whether the opposition groups will reconcile
to working together with TRT to overcome these technical
obstacles to seating a parliament that will be of limited
duration. The imperative of reaching some accommodation in
advance of the King\’s coronation anniversary in June may
induce sufficient compromise. This is more than a technical
or academic issue: the new parliament will produce the new
administration, and together they will be charged with coming
up with new rules for the next round of elections – the only
hope, really, to break the current cycle of paralysis and
confrontation. End Comment.
BOYCE
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