BANGKOK, May 24 – Thailand’s constituency-based MP candidate registration nationwide began Tuesday morning and will continue through Saturday after registration for party-list candidates ended Monday.
Single-seat constituency registrations for the 375 single-seat positions in Bangkok was held at the Keelawes 2 Building in the Thai-Japan Youth Centre’s Din Daeng compound, the same venue as for the earlier party-list candidates registration.
Bangkok has 33 constituencies.
Security is being provided by 438 police officers.
The first party arriving at the centre was the Democrat Party, led by party Secretary-General Suthep Thaugsuban, later joined by party leader Abhisit Vejjajiva.
Meanwhile, the Puea Thai Party’s number one party-list candidate Yingluck Shinawatra came to show support for her party’s candidates in Bangkok.
Other parties gradually led their candidates to register, including Chavarat Charnvirakul, leader of the Bhumjaithai Party; Charnchai Chairungrueng leader of the Chart Pattana Puea Pandin Party who led sport personalities including retired and popular footballer Piyapong Piew-on, Olympic bronze medal-winning taekwondo specialist Yaowapa Boorapolchai to register while former tennis star Paradorn Srichaphan came to support the party’s candidates.
In other provinces, candidates are registering at venues designated by the Election Commission (EC), but mainly at each provincial city hall.
Constituency candidates are not required to draw lots for their numbers on the ballots, they are using the numbers each party already drew during party-list registration.
The EC said there were 40 parties with 1,410 registered party-list candidates.
There are 125 party-list MP seats in Parliament. The popular votes a party receives in the general election will be calculated into the number of party-list MP seats it wins in the general election set for July 3.
