The Election Commission (EC) had a party-member database in hand and it could check current members right away. Therefore, he said, names of parties' members could not be duplicated.Nikorn, who is chief adviser to Chart Thai Pattana Party, said at the present, current members of all parties accounted for only 4.8 million people, 2.8 million for the Democrats, and just 150,000 for Pheu Thai. However, he did not believe the EC is in a position to confirm whether policies are practical or not.Abhisit stressed that all political parties have legitimacy to decide whether or not they field candidates to contest an election. And if a party obstructs the running of an election, that is basically unlawful, referring to the EC proposal to revoke a party's status if it boycotts a poll. Asked to what extent people feel confident in the EC being able to combat poll fraud, 53 per cent said they felt "less to least" confident, 37 per cent said "much to most", and 9.8 per cent said they were "not sure".

Source: The Nation Bangkok September 10, 2016 17:15 UTC