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86 ENHANCING ELECTIONS AS INSTRUMENTS OF DEMOCRACY IN THE ASEAN REGION

Act, B.E. 2475 (1932) as amended by the Election Act, B.E. 2476 (1933)
(Chaowana Traimas, 2550) In this election, voters in each province chose

a representative of a sub-district (tambon) who then voted for a member
of the House of Representatives for that province. It was the first and
only indirect election held in Thailand.

After the electoral system of members of the House of
Representative was modified, the general elections of members of the

House of Representatives held in Thailand during 1937-1996 have become
direct elections.

However, during that period, Thailand’s electoral system has

shifted over time. Different challenges and factors at different time periods
caused different results, especially on how electorates are divided, how

to cast a ballot, how ballots are counted, and how the election results
are declared. The common ground, however, lied on their simple majority
system, where candidates who received most votes in an electorate won

their seats in the House of Representatives, provided that votes were
non-transferrable to other candidates.

Through socio-political culture perspective in Thai politics,
problems and obstacles of elections in Thailand can be compiled

as follows:

Honest and fair elections are not achieved as there usually is

a lack of adequate information on candidates and their political parties’
policy issues for voters to compare and make decisions. Without sufficient
information on policy issues, voters tend to make their decisions based

primarily on other factors. This is in contrary to how electoral campaigns
are conducted in liberal democracies.