Thailand's EC has no comments on downsized supervision

BANGKOK, December 27 (TNA) - The Election Commission of Thailand (EC) has no comments over the Constitution Drafting Committee (CDC)'s recent proposal on downsizing its authority to only be responsible for supervising elections. Declining to make any comment on the CDC proposal, EC Chairman Supachai Somcharoen told journalists on Saturday (Dec 27) that his election agency will follow the final decision, which has to be jointly made by the National Reform Council (NRC) and the army-led National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO). However, the EC chair pointed out that the Interior Ministry used to supervise the country’s elections when the EC was not yet established. Previously, the EC was responsible for fixing election dates, supervising elections and probing alleged electoral fraud cases. The EC chair opined that the domestic political scenario should improve after the ongoing national reform is completed. In another related CDC proposed idea, Deputy Defence Minister and Army Chief General Udomdej Sitabutr told reporters before leaving for a visit to the Third Army Area Command headquarters in the lower northern Phitsanulok Province that he rather not made any opinion on a CDC proposal that Thailand's prime ministers after the national reform be a non-partisan and not a member of the House of Representatives, as the CDC has its own reason in making such the proposal. General Udomdej is scheduled to offer morale and present New Year gifts to army personnel at the Third Army Area and to later travel to the northern Chiang Mai Province to visit soldiers manning the border and to inform them to solve the drug smuggling problem, as it is a major policy of the government. (TNA)