Jatuporn Is Still A Thorn In EC's Side

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Jatuporn is still a thorn in EC's side

By Tulsathit Taptim

The real question about Jatuporn Promphan is not about whether or not he will be endorsed by the Election Commission.

In fact, it would be far easier for would-be prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra if the EC just ignored the growing pressure from the red-shirt movement and kept Jatuporn's political future in limbo. After all, the red shirts have proved that once the mouse gets the cheese, it will ask for, well, a Cabinet post.

It was a big deal as to whether Pheu Thai did or did not put the red-shirt leaders in its party list. This is not only because many of the reds were embroiled in legal troubles, but also because the party's reconciliation agenda got a bit complicated with the reds being given the chance to vie for Cabinet seats. They were eventually allowed to grace the party list anyway, because Thaksin Shinawatra and Co seemed to have decided that whatever happened, they would handle it later.

After the July 3 election, the EC apparently gave the Pheu Thai leadership a bit of a reprieve. All red-shirt party-list candidates were "suspended" for different reasons, most notably their lingering legal problems. This week, however, the EC has unshackled most of them, leaving just Jatuporn on the hook. Should Thaksin and Yingluck be happy?

The Shinawatra siblings can pretend to be upset, but having Jatuporn on suspension can spare them some big headaches. The red shirts have clearly shown that they will not stop at putting their leaders in Parliament, they want at least some of them to be in the Cabinet. If Jatuporn is set free by the EC, then he will be the first name on the red shirts' list of nominees for Yingluck's Cabinet line-up.

The EC is facing a dilemma. Keep Jatuporn suspended and the commission faces the risk of a lawsuit by the red shirts. Endorse him as a member of Parliament and anti-red groups might sue it. In addition to that, the law books are anything but clear when it comes to what the EC can and cannot do. Jatuporn's case is unprecedented, something the charter drafters and lawmakers obviously did not have in mind when prescribing electoral candidacy rules.

The Constitution in essence says that if you are imprisoned, you cannot cast your ballot. (This is a sensible stipulation, as we cannot imagine the tens of thousands of inmates being let loose on election day.) Meanwhile, the Political Party Act states that you cannot be a political party member if you do not exercise your right to vote in election. (This is also a proper requirement as, among other things, it is supposed to strengthen political parties.)

Jatuporn's problem is that when the EC registered him and others as party-list candidates, two important things had not happened "yet". At that time, it was still uncertain whether Jatuporn would be allowed to vote on July 3 because nobody knew whether the court would release him temporarily to cast his ballot. At the time of candidacy registration, Jatuporn in effect remained a Pheu Thai "member".

Once Jatuporn failed to vote on July 3, his Pheu Thai membership was immediately put in doubt. And if he cannot be classified as a Pheu Thai member, how can he be its election candidate, let alone a party-list MP? The EC has to keep him suspended because of this question. Endorsing his MP status could make the commission vulnerable to charges of malfeasance.

However, the red shirts are thinking otherwise. According to them, the EC has no business deciding whether someone is a member of a political party, especially if that "someone" has already passed EC screening on the candidacy registration day and is confirmed as a party-list candidate. The EC, the red shirts insist, only has the power to suspend election winners accused of violating electoral rules, not rules governing the political party membership.

For the present, this is the EC's headache, and the Shinawatra siblings must be wishing it stays that way.

-- The Nation 2011-07-29