Dusit Poll Reveals Majority of the Public Disagrees with Election Commissions Party-List MP Formula

BANGKOK – An opinion survey by Suan Dusit Rajabhat University, or Suan Dusit Poll has revealed that a large majority of people disagree with the Election Commission (EC)’s endorsement of 149 party-list MPs, reasoning that the calculation method used by the EC was unfair and did not give importance to the voice of the majority.

The poll was conducted on May 7-11 on 1,187 people throughout the country after the EC officially announced 349 MPs elected from constituencies and 149 MPs in the party-list system, and while the government forwarded a name list of 250 senators to His Majesty the King for approval.

Asked whether they agreed with the EC’s endorsement of 349 MPs from 350 constituencies, a majority — 76.24% — said “no”, reasoning that the announcement should cover all of the 350 constituencies at the same time, while 23.76% said “yes”, believing that the EC had correctly followed the stipulation in the constitution.

On the EC’s endorsement of party-list MPs, a majority — 75.40% — of the respondents said they disagreed with it, reasoning that many sides had said the method used by the EC to calculate the party-list MPs was unfair to many parties and gave no importance to the voice of the majority, while 24.60% agreed, saying that the party-list MPs must be announced after the endorsement of constituency MPs.

Asked whether they agreed with the resignation of 15 cabinet ministers to take up senatorial posts, a large majority — 83.15% —  said “no”, saying that since they are close to Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha their neutrality as senators would be in doubt, while only 16.85% said “yes”, reasoning that they have the right to do so because they are capable persons with knowledge of the country’s various affairs.

Asked whether they agreed with the resignation of some members of the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) to be made senators, 85.00% said “no”, reasoning that they should instead show the public that their membership of the NCPO was to work for the country, not for personal power or vested interests, while only 15.00% said “yes”, simply because they have faith and confidence in the NCPO.