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90 ENHANCING ELECTIONS AS INSTRUMENTS OF DEMOCRACY IN THE ASEAN REGION

Research findings discovered problems in electoral process.
The problems of vote buying and unfair conduct of officers were unable

to be dealt with because of the way electorates and precincts were
divided and the selection of officers in charge with election administration
which is done solely by the Minister of Interior (Thirapat Serirangsan,

2547). Although election frauds were known to be widespread and
complicated, petitions and electoral disputes are rare and the process

of investigation and adjudication is time-consuming. In some cases, the
adjudication could not be resolved even when a new election took place
(Sakun Susongtham, 2556).

Moreover, assigning the responsibility in election administration to
the Ministry of Interior has caused another problem. Being a bureaucratic

organization, the ministry is under control of politicians or high ranking
officials and has to act in compliance with laws and regulations which are

quite inflexible. When candidates realized that the electoral monitoring
system is weak and inefficient, they take this opportunity to apply a variety
of electoral competition strategies to win the elections (Borwornsak

Uwanno, 2546).

The starting point of political reform, which covered the reform
of the structure of state power and the statement in the Political Reform

Constitution to establish an election commission, had been apparently
observable in the 1992 Black May protest. The people’s demonstrations

which called for a political reform were positively responded by
political leaders and acted in accordance with the will of the people.
The Constitution Drafting Assembly was, therefore, formed to draft the

Constitution. Public participation in the decision making process had also