On 17 April, Election Commissioner Sodsri Sattayatham commented on the vote of Apichart Sukhakkhanon, Chair of the Election Commission, not to dissolve the Democrat Party in contrast to the other four commissioners.

She said that Apichart wore two hats, as the Chair of the EC and as the Registrar of Political Parties.  As Registrar, he had appointed a 9-member working committee to deal with the Democrat case on his behalf.

On 12 April, the EC asked the Registrar whether he had finished the case, and he replied that the committee had voted 7 to 2 to dissolve the party, which was considered a decision of the Registrar, she said.

With the Registrar’s decision, the EC called a meeting on the afternoon of the same day, as this was a crucial issue.  At the meeting, each member of the committee presented his or her own information in detail to the EC before the vote.  Apichart voted as an election commissioner, not as Registrar, because the Registrar’s job had already been finished [with the committee’s decision].  So his vote against the dissolution of the Democrat Party was in the capacity of Election Commissioner.  If the Registrar’s committee had voted against dissolution, the EC would not have had to put the issue on the table, Sodsri said.

She said that the red shirts’ protests did not pressure the EC into making its decision.  The red shirts had protested at the EC building three times.  If there had been pressure, the EC would have rushed to make a decision once the red shirts staged the first protest.

The Democrat Party has been accused of misusing 29 million baht it received from the Political Parties Development Fund, and illegally receiving a donation of 258 million baht from TPI Polene Plc.  The EC voted unanimously to dissolve the party for the first offence, but 4 to 1 for dissolution for the latter offence.  

Sodsri expected that the Registrar would send the case to the Attorney-General next week, and he would forward it to the Constitutional Court.  How long the case would take was up to the Court, as the EC had already finished its job, she said.

Niphit Intarasombat, a Democrat MP for Phattalung and Chair of the party’s legal taskforce, said that his team would meet on 20 April to study the legal points, and the Treasurer and Registrar of the party when Banyat Banthadthan was Party Leader would be invited to provide information.  Banyat along with former Secretary-General Pradit Pattaraprasit and former Deputy Secretary-General Niphon Bunyamanee would be invited to the next meeting.

Niphit said that they would discuss filing a complaint with the Administrative Court against the EC’s decision.  It would take some time before the case reached the Constitutional Court.  He insisted that the decision of the Registrar was considered an administrative order because the Administrative Court had annulled the elections on 2 April 2005 due to voting booths being arranged in the wrong direction.

He did not worry about the 258 million baht case as much as the 29 million baht case, as the latter was about a technicality in accounting, which would probably have to be defended in the Constitutional Court.

However, the party was 64 years old and it was unreasonable to dissolve it because of erroneous accounting.  Big parties like Thai Rak Thai, Chart Thai and Matchimathipataya have previously been dissolved due to electoral fraud, while smaller parties were dissolved mostly because they could not meet the minimum membership requirement of 50,000 members or regional branches in all four regions, or because they failed to hold a general assembly of the party.  No party had ever been dissolved on grounds of wrong accounting, he said.