Committee (CDC) to Chiang Mai on Sunday to gather
Northern public opinion at a meeting attended by 166 people.
(File photo by Thiti Wannamontha)
Candidates who commit election fraud should be banned from
politics for life, along with all their relatives, as standard
punishment, a public hearing for the Constitution Drafting
Committee was told yesterday.
That would help break the circle of political power being
inherited in a family, the seminar in Chiang Mai, which drew 166 participants from 15 northern provinces, agreed.
The CDC public hearing was held alongside a
live online
opinion survey, where users could submit responses to the CDC
chairman's questions through the internet.
In
response to chairman Meechai Ruchupan's question as to
how the country could
better suppress election fraud,
a majority of seminar participants agreed with
the lifetime ban
from politics.
But merely banning the candidate from
politics carries the risk
that someone else in the family would try to inherit
the political
legacy, said the northern participants. All of the wrongdoer's
family members should also be banned, they said.
The wrongdoer should also have to pay financial compensation
for any fraud that forces the
country to call a re-election.
The compensation, which would be
intended to cover the cost
of the new election, might come in the form of
forced assets
seizures, they said.
If a wrongdoer is convicted of criminal charges attached to the
act of election
fraud, the statute of limitations should apply
throughout the person's
lifespan, reinforcing the life ban
concept, the seminar participants added.
Other
proposals raised by participants included a call for public participation in
the monitoring and investigation of election
fraud cases.
The public should be allowed to have a say
in what happens to
election candidates found guilty of fraud, said many
participants,
who also pointed to the importance of public campaigns to
foster
greater public awareness and condemnation of
election fraud.
In
the live internet survey -- conducted alongside the seminar
between 2.30 and
3.30pm -- 10 internet users logged on to
answer the online questionnaire.
Most agreed voting should be made a
compulsory duty of all
citizens and whoever fails to vote will face have their
political rights revoked.
Meanwhile, Supoj Khaimuk, deputy chairman of the CDC,
said
the current charter drafting process is
different from earlier
ones due to the complexity of politics today.
News,Politics, Bangkok Post,23 November 2015.
I
agree that candidates who commit election fraud
should be
banned from politics for life, along with all their relatives,
as
standard punishment.
And the wrongdoer should
also have to pay financial compensation
for any fraud that forces the country to call a re-election.
Sincerely Yours.
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