The Election Commission (EC) has approved a proposal involving poll re-runs in 11 provinces where balloting for Jan 26 advance voting and the Feb 2 election was disrupted by protest blockades, its secretary-general Puchong Nutrawong says.
Mr Puchong said the poll re-runs are scheduled for April 5 in Pattani, Yala, Narathiwat, Prachuap Khiri Khan and Bangkok and on April 27 for Chumphon, Nakhon Si Thammarat, Krabi, Phuket, Satun and Phangnga.
He said the proposal is the result of last Friday’s meeting between the EC and parties concerned in Songkhla’s Hat Yai district.
The EC has resolved that it will wait for a Constitution Court ruling before making any decision concerning 28 constituencies where there were no candidates to contest the Feb 2 election, he said.
The poll agency has asked the court who has authority to announce the polls in 28 constituencies in the South, after the government argued it cannot issue a new royal decree for the election re-runs to proceed as it would violate the constitution.
According to Mr Puchong, the EC is unlikely to seek an additional budget to fund the re-runs. The agency, which was allocated 3.8 billion baht to organise the Feb 2 snap election, has 500 million baht of its budget left over.
For the March 30 Senate election, he said the EC has a total budget of 2.8 billion baht to organise the poll.
There are 77 seats up for grabs in the March 30 election. A total of 457 candidates have registered to contest in the Senate poll in 77 provinces with Bangkok seeing the highest number of candidates at 18.
Caretaker Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra yesterday said the government wanted the poll re-runs to be organised on the same date as the Senate election to help save money.
However, Ms Yingluck said the EC will have the final say over the matter.
Asked about what would happen if the Constitution Court rules to invalidate the election because it was not held on the same day nationwide as per the constitution, Ms Yingluck said the government hopes a ruling will at least provide a solution to the current political stalemate.