Thai poll supports vote buyers be banned from running in election for life

[wandasloan]

Depends how they are going to define vote buying.

Should not just be money in the hand but things like :

If you vote us in we will give you...................

If you don't vote us in we will make sure you don't get......................................

No one has promised more in the past decade than General P*h during the past month. "Support me and I will give you peace, and freedom from hunger, and happiness forever."

Ban for life? Somehow, I don't think that would fly. But yes, I'm sure that is EXACTLY what the new constitution will do, is ban politicians from making an election platform. It will take effect for the next people after the current vote-buyer.

.

[tomyummer]

Yes. 5 years is such a joke.

[awayego]

My wife, from rural Chiang Rai, and her family too, always took money for voting from as many politicians as possible.

The result? "I'm not going to vote for anyone who has to buy their way in to power!"

Thai pragmatism in practice!

[snottgoblin]

Where is the thread about todays EU decision to cease all officials visits with Thaiand and more punitive measures to follow.

The EU, a corrupt, hypocritical gravy train for greedy politicians.

[tingtongteesood]

GOOD, Hope this policy will be introduced and strictly enforced also retroactively to cover the last 50 years too !!!

[rucus7]

Please someone answer me this. What kind of democracy can exist, without out vote buying by the rank and file voters? I am reminded of the old adage " What if they gave a war and no one came?" I fear the results could be the same, no money why bother voting? Sadly many Thais I have encountered over the years I have been in Thailand, vote only if they are being compensated.

This does not address the fear and intimidation delivered by the village headmen, suggesting that if families don't vote " correctly". They could encounter problems. Many if not most fear their ballots are in no way secret. The upshot is it is not only money that controls the voting populace.

[scorecard]

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Please someone answer me this. What kind of democracy can exist, without out vote buying by the rank and file voters? I am reminded of the old adage " What if they gave a war and no one came?" I fear the results could be the same, no money why bother voting? Sadly many Thais I have encountered over the years I have been in Thailand, vote only if they are being compensated.

This does not address the fear and intimidation delivered by the village headmen, suggesting that if families don't vote " correctly". They could encounter problems. Many if not most fear their ballots are in no way secret. The upshot is it is not only money that controls the voting populace.

You've listed the extra things that need fixing.

Additionally there is clearly a need for a lot of education to get more folks to understand what it should look like and why.

Policies which generate a better quality of life through personal productivity would also help.

Difficult to achieve, yes. can be achieved, yes. In fact we must never say it can't be done.

[HuaHinHim]

I think the biggest problem with reforms in Thailand is where do you start.

[weka]

My wife, from rural Chiang Rai, and her family too, always took money for voting from as many politicians as possible.

The result? "I'm not going to vote for anyone who has to buy their way in to power!"

Thai pragmatism in practice!

And you believed that cock and bull story? Stupidity

All vote buyers have electoral rolls and record who gets money and ticks that off against id's. Do you really think these "politicians" are that thick to arbitrarily hand out money willy nilly?

Last year our local body elections were held. The incumbent gave 500 baht per vote. The newcomer a ridiculous (by the norm) 1000 baht. The newcomer won and the incumbent team shrugged and muttered that they could never keep up with that. They also resigned themselves to the fact that they now were last on the list of getting anything done from the elected.

People in the teams of both sides canvassed "votes" and ticked off the names.

There are 30,000 voters in this area. The problem isn't so much the vote buying (btw in 10 years I have never seen an election sans vote buying) but the fact that the winner is 1 million dollars in the hole.

Where does that 1 million dollars come from? And after that another million on normal graft - that's the tragedy in buying votes for 1000 baht a pop. Not the ethical issue.

The community just lost at least a million bucks on roads, lights, footpaths, ration packs, community entertainment, flood help etc.

The previous representative was (despite being legally and ethically corrupt) very very good for the community. Got roads and public amenities done, ration packs and mosquito spraying, listened to grievances and cleaned up the floods in about a week - impressive.

The electorate is 30 kms from silom road.

Now all you keyboard Thai experts who know everything shoot down this scenario, while all the locals won't pass judgement on you but will remember the times when their elected official actually helped the community, despite your protestations over "bad form". They know no other way (they've never seen it work properly - has anyone?) and your chuntering is worthless - worth less than the 500 baht they got to ensure accountability from a hamstrung democracy.

[1plumber]

Your post has a lot of merit and food for thought. Sound perspective I think

My wife, from rural Chiang Rai, and her family too, always took money for voting from as many politicians as possible.

The result? "I'm not going to vote for anyone who has to buy their way in to power!"

Thai pragmatism in practice!

And you believed that cock and bull story? Stupidity

All vote buyers have electoral rolls and record who gets money and ticks that off against id's. Do you really think these "politicians" are that thick to arbitrarily hand out money willy nilly?

Last year our local body elections were held. The incumbent gave 500 baht per vote. The newcomer a ridiculous (by the norm) 1000 baht. The newcomer won and the incumbent team shrugged and muttered that they could never keep up with that. They also resigned themselves to the fact that they now were last on the list of getting anything done from the elected.

People in the teams of both sides canvassed "votes" and ticked off the names.

There are 30,000 voters in this area. The problem isn't so much the vote buying (btw in 10 years I have never seen an election sans vote buying) but the fact that the winner is 1 million dollars in the hole.

Where does that 1 million dollars come from? And after that another million on normal graft - that's the tragedy in buying votes for 1000 baht a pop. Not the ethical issue.

The community just lost at least a million bucks on roads, lights, footpaths, ration packs, community entertainment, flood help etc.

The previous representative was (despite being legally and ethically corrupt) very very good for the community. Got roads and public amenities done, ration packs and mosquito spraying, listened to grievances and cleaned up the floods in about a week - impressive.

The electorate is 30 kms from silom road.

Now all you keyboard Thai experts who know everything shoot down this scenario, while all the locals won't pass judgement on you but will remember the times when their elected official actually helped the community, despite your protestations over "bad form". They know no other way (they've never seen it work properly - has anyone?) and your chuntering is worthless - worth less than the 500 baht they got to ensure accountability from a hamstrung democracy.

[wealth]

OMG! The end of democracy "Thai style" is looming.

[Eric Loh]

In principal, totally agree that heavier deterrent and monitoring needed against vote buying but will be very hard to implement. Will need new laws to be written to prevent vote buying in terms of favour, promises, promotion etc etc and in kinds like bag of rice and not only cash.

[doukee]

That's the yellow democrats finished!

Thats the red apologist pathetic migrant expats finished then!!

My wife is from the northeast. It is common for both parties to hand out cash to prospective voters and for people to take the cash from both parties. They consider this a way to get something at election time from the system that kinda ignores them at other times. They vote whichever party they decide to support.

[Emster23]

Good start if applied to all political stripes. And how add this: Those who disrupt elections and prevent candidates from registering etc banned for life and give ten years hard labor?

[Morch]

Ought to be stricter measures applied for vote buying and vote selling, and anything in between.

That said, not sure how efficient bans for candidates and politicians are - most of them just send in a family member or

another crony to seat it out until the ban ends. So a ban for life might be a wee bit more effective, but not that big a deal.

Getting serious about monies (in addition to bans) would hit the offenders where it hurts, jail time as well (more because

of face issues).

Banning voters selling their votes, for life, is not a good idea. Being so prevalent, this could easily backfire and result in a

lot of people being marginalized very quickly. A ban from the next election or two would do nicely, plus a hefty fine.

And yes, Thai figures, especially on poll related stories, are a joy.

Edited June 24, 2014 by Morch

[Ulic]

Depends how they are going to define vote buying.

Should not just be money in the hand but things like :

If you vote us in we will give you...................

If you don't vote us in we will make sure you don't get......................................

So true, in the USA there would be zero politicians as they all accept donations from

special interest groups. Corruption in politics is world wide and can be found in all countries.

The level depends on how you define it.

[awayego]

My wife, from rural Chiang Rai, and her family too, always took money for voting from as many politicians as possible.

The result? "I'm not going to vote for anyone who has to buy their way in to power!"

Thai pragmatism in practice!

And you believed that cock and bull story? Stupidity

All vote buyers have electoral rolls and record who gets money and ticks that off against id's. Do you really think these "politicians" are that thick to arbitrarily hand out money willy nilly?

Last year our local body elections were held. The incumbent gave 500 baht per vote. The newcomer a ridiculous (by the norm) 1000 baht. The newcomer won and the incumbent team shrugged and muttered that they could never keep up with that. They also resigned themselves to the fact that they now were last on the list of getting anything done from the elected.

People in the teams of both sides canvassed "votes" and ticked off the names.

There are 30,000 voters in this area. The problem isn't so much the vote buying (btw in 10 years I have never seen an election sans vote buying) but the fact that the winner is 1 million dollars in the hole.

Where does that 1 million dollars come from? And after that another million on normal graft - that's the tragedy in buying votes for 1000 baht a pop. Not the ethical issue.

The community just lost at least a million bucks on roads, lights, footpaths, ration packs, community entertainment, flood help etc.

The previous representative was (despite being legally and ethically corrupt) very very good for the community. Got roads and public amenities done, ration packs and mosquito spraying, listened to grievances and cleaned up the floods in about a week - impressive.

The electorate is 30 kms from silom road.

Now all you keyboard Thai experts who know everything shoot down this scenario, while all the locals won't pass judgement on you but will remember the times when their elected official actually helped the community, despite your protestations over "bad form". They know no other way (they've never seen it work properly - has anyone?) and your chuntering is worthless - worth less than the 500 baht they got to ensure accountability from a hamstrung democracy.

Not "cock and bull" at all!

Maybe in many larger electoral areas candidates are able to check who has voted for them and pay accordingly.

I have questioned my wife closely about this and she is adamant that on many electoral occasions she and her family have taken money from more than one politician and voted for none of them. Politicians. at least in her area, accept that vote "buying" is just a normal part of their election expenses.

Most of them do it, though not all, and it is frequently the "clean" candidate, who has a good record of local representation, who is elected.

"Stupidity"? How dare you! You don't know me and you don't know my wife or her family, amongst whom I have lived for nine years.

Of course I believe my wife but I believe my own eyes even more.

[weka]

My wife, from rural Chiang Rai, and her family too, always took money for voting from as many politicians as possible.

The result? "I'm not going to vote for anyone who has to buy their way in to power!"

Thai pragmatism in practice!

And you believed that cock and bull story? Stupidity

All vote buyers have electoral rolls and record who gets money and ticks that off against id's. Do you really think these "politicians" are that thick to arbitrarily hand out money willy nilly?

Last year our local body elections were held. The incumbent gave 500 baht per vote. The newcomer a ridiculous (by the norm) 1000 baht. The newcomer won and the incumbent team shrugged and muttered that they could never keep up with that. They also resigned themselves to the fact that they now were last on the list of getting anything done from the elected.

People in the teams of both sides canvassed "votes" and ticked off the names.

There are 30,000 voters in this area. The problem isn't so much the vote buying (btw in 10 years I have never seen an election sans vote buying) but the fact that the winner is 1 million dollars in the hole.

Where does that 1 million dollars come from? And after that another million on normal graft - that's the tragedy in buying votes for 1000 baht a pop. Not the ethical issue.

The community just lost at least a million bucks on roads, lights, footpaths, ration packs, community entertainment, flood help etc.

The previous representative was (despite being legally and ethically corrupt) very very good for the community. Got roads and public amenities done, ration packs and mosquito spraying, listened to grievances and cleaned up the floods in about a week - impressive.

The electorate is 30 kms from silom road.

Now all you keyboard Thai experts who know everything shoot down this scenario, while all the locals won't pass judgement on you but will remember the times when their elected official actually helped the community, despite your protestations over "bad form". They know no other way (they've never seen it work properly - has anyone?) and your chuntering is worthless - worth less than the 500 baht they got to ensure accountability from a hamstrung democracy.

Not "cock and bull" at all!

Maybe in many larger electoral areas candidates are able to check who has voted for them and pay accordingly.

I have questioned my wife closely about this and she is adamant that on many electoral occasions she and her family have taken money from more than one politician and voted for none of them. Politicians. at least in her area, accept that vote "buying" is just a normal part of their election expenses.

Most of them do it, though not all, and it is frequently the "clean" candidate, who has a good record of local representation, who is elected.

"Stupidity"? How dare you! You don't know me and you don't know my wife or her family, amongst whom I have lived for nine years.

Of course I believe my wife but I believe my own eyes even more.

This is an excellent reply to my inflammatory first line. I apologise for the "stupidity" comment awayego - I suspect I was in an inflammatory mood, and it was unnecessary.

As you pointed out "Thai pragmatism in practise" also leads me to opine on the side of the vote buyers recording and having means to control or determine the vote they paid for rather than just throwing the money out there in hope. It's a sizeable investment, this election winning.

Like you I prefer my own eyes to back up what I genuinely believe from Thai family mouths, and indeed previously I believe my wife did the same (take money and vote independently), however my eyes also tell me that this is the exception rather the the rule for the general populace.

Amusing that we have a discussion about our vote buying observations and push the practice to one side and look at the overall benefit to the communities we have placed ourselves in - TIT pragmatism indeed.

Wish I could say the same about the clean candidate winning. All I noticed in the last one was that the access road to the winner's house got resealed the next week

Good luck to you and your family awayego, I hope you bear no hard feelings from my rash typing.

[spidermike007]

Vote buying is pretty ugly stuff. But, is it any different from lobbying in the US? You give us $2,000,000 and we will hand you our constituency who will elect you. All American style lobbying is, is institutionalized corruption. On a massive level. Which makes guys like Obama, Clinton, Romney, McCain, Reid, and nearly everyone else in Washington institutional whores. Their level of corruption is not much different from the top dogs of the recent past, here in the LOS. Is it?

[billd766]

Ban vote buying but we'll still accept the money.

if they ban everyone involved there will be nobody left in Thai politics.

Would anybody notice or care that much?

[renaissanc]

I'd like to see large rewards being offered to people who report vote-buying with evidence.

Edited June 25, 2014 by renaissanc

[worzel]

Poll supports vote buyers be banned from running in election for life

BANGKOK: -- NIDA poll revealed that the majority of people agreed to ban vote buying politicians from running in elections for life.

The poll was conducted from 1,269 people from all walks of life, all levels of education and occupations scattering in all regions of the country during June 20-21 through systematic random sampling method.

The topic of the poll is corruption and election.

On a question of how to resolve the problem of vote buying in elections, 38.79% proposed longer imprisonment terms and election ban for life for those found guilty, while 28.61% said their canvassers who help to facilitate vote buying should get longer imprisonment terms, and 13.14 advised that election candidates must declare the money source used for election campaign, and l must declare their assets before and after elections.

9.24% said election committee members must not be government officials, and must not have registered households in the province where election is held.

6.41% want the government to shoulder travel cost to the polling stations, while 2.2% wanted higher penalties on both the candidates and canvassers

On a question of how to resolve corruption among politicians and government officials, 24.93% proposed triple value of assets they obtained from corruption be seized, while 23.36% said corruption cases must have no statute of limitations,and 13.49% supported asset declaration of all levels of government officials on yearly basis.

(pic : file photo)

Source: http://englishnews.thaipbs.or.th/poll-supports-vote-buyers-banned-running-election-life/

-- Thai PBS 2014-06-24

f me there be no one left to vote for

Sent from my GT-I9500 using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

[awayego]

My wife, from rural Chiang Rai, and her family too, always took money for voting from as many politicians as possible.

The result? "I'm not going to vote for anyone who has to buy their way in to power!"

Thai pragmatism in practice!

And you believed that cock and bull story? Stupidity

All vote buyers have electoral rolls and record who gets money and ticks that off against id's. Do you really think these "politicians" are that thick to arbitrarily hand out money willy nilly?

Last year our local body elections were held. The incumbent gave 500 baht per vote. The newcomer a ridiculous (by the norm) 1000 baht. The newcomer won and the incumbent team shrugged and muttered that they could never keep up with that. They also resigned themselves to the fact that they now were last on the list of getting anything done from the elected.

People in the teams of both sides canvassed "votes" and ticked off the names.

There are 30,000 voters in this area. The problem isn't so much the vote buying (btw in 10 years I have never seen an election sans vote buying) but the fact that the winner is 1 million dollars in the hole.

Where does that 1 million dollars come from? And after that another million on normal graft - that's the tragedy in buying votes for 1000 baht a pop. Not the ethical issue.

The community just lost at least a million bucks on roads, lights, footpaths, ration packs, community entertainment, flood help etc.

The previous representative was (despite being legally and ethically corrupt) very very good for the community. Got roads and public amenities done, ration packs and mosquito spraying, listened to grievances and cleaned up the floods in about a week - impressive.

The electorate is 30 kms from silom road.

Now all you keyboard Thai experts who know everything shoot down this scenario, while all the locals won't pass judgement on you but will remember the times when their elected official actually helped the community, despite your protestations over "bad form". They know no other way (they've never seen it work properly - has anyone?) and your chuntering is worthless - worth less than the 500 baht they got to ensure accountability from a hamstrung democracy.

Not "cock and bull" at all!

Maybe in many larger electoral areas candidates are able to check who has voted for them and pay accordingly.

I have questioned my wife closely about this and she is adamant that on many electoral occasions she and her family have taken money from more than one politician and voted for none of them. Politicians. at least in her area, accept that vote "buying" is just a normal part of their election expenses.

Most of them do it, though not all, and it is frequently the "clean" candidate, who has a good record of local representation, who is elected.

"Stupidity"? How dare you! You don't know me and you don't know my wife or her family, amongst whom I have lived for nine years.

Of course I believe my wife but I believe my own eyes even more.

This is an excellent reply to my inflammatory first line. I apologise for the "stupidity" comment awayego - I suspect I was in an inflammatory mood, and it was unnecessary.

As you pointed out "Thai pragmatism in practise" also leads me to opine on the side of the vote buyers recording and having means to control or determine the vote they paid for rather than just throwing the money out there in hope. It's a sizeable investment, this election winning.

Like you I prefer my own eyes to back up what I genuinely believe from Thai family mouths, and indeed previously I believe my wife did the same (take money and vote independently), however my eyes also tell me that this is the exception rather the the rule for the general populace.

Amusing that we have a discussion about our vote buying observations and push the practice to one side and look at the overall benefit to the communities we have placed ourselves in - TIT pragmatism indeed.

Wish I could say the same about the clean candidate winning. All I noticed in the last one was that the access road to the winner's house got resealed the next week

Good luck to you and your family awayego, I hope you bear no hard feelings from my rash typing.

Apology accepted and appreciated. No hard feelings!

We'll see if things have changed when there are elections again!

Good luck to you and yours too!