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King Prajadhipok’s Institute 91

been escalated. The Constitution was accepted through consensus and
was, accordingly, regarded as the People’s Constitution, a pride and hope

of the country’s democratization process.

The decision to establish the Election Commission of Thailand

(ECT) as an independent organization, which was stated in the Constitution,
were based on the results of public hearings and research findings from
the Thai Political Reform Proposals Project, presented to the Democracy

Development Commission. The fifteen books, which are the project
outputs, contain an analysis of problems existing in laws and regulations

and in reality, compiled through a study of lesson learning in the past
and best practices in other countries to arrive at ways to prevent and
solve problems of Thailand in the future.

The research findings of the project contain recommendations
on how to reform the electoral system in compliance with the political
reform. The project initiated the idea of establishing an electoral

system in which vote buying is minimized and opportunities for honest
people to become candidates are maximized (Paitoon Boonyawat, 2538).

In addition, the project proposed that the organization in charge of
electoral administration should be separated from the organization in
charge of electoral monitoring, public participation as election watchdogs

should be promoted, and an organization fully in charge of civic and voter
education should be formed.

Another research, titled an establishment of organizations to
support honest and fair elections, recommended that the following

organizations were to be responsible for 3 main dimensions of election
affairs (Paitoon Boonyawat, 2538):