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Poll shows most Thais supportive of single-ballot voting method

Xinhua, November 8, 2015 Adjust font size:

Most Thais are in favor of casting a single ballot to select Members of Parliament (MPs) from both constituencies and the party list, an opinion poll released Sunday showed.

More than 60 percent of a total of 1,156 respondents surveyed nationwide from Nov. 2 to 7 voiced support for using only one ballot when voting for constituency and party list MPs, according to the results of a poll by the Suan Dusit Rajabhat University.

The survey was conducted as the Constitution Drafting Committee (CDC) resolved to maintain a German-styled mixed member proportional (MMP) electoral system, which was proposed by a previous charter drafting body.

Unlike their predecessors, however, the present CDC decided to use a single-ballot voting system instead of a two-ballot one.

While the majority of the respondents believed it was easy for them to understand the single-ballot method and for votes to be counted, 39.02 percent still preferred to cast two ballots, one for a constituency MP and the other for a political party.

Thailand expects to have a new general election around mid-2017, according to the government's current roadmap, which allows six months for drafting a new constitution, four months for holding a public referendum, another six months for drafting organic laws and four more months for election preparations.

Meanwhile, another poll released Sunday, which was conducted by the National Institute of Development Administration (NIDA), showed 54.88 percent of 1,250 respondents agreed that politicians found guilty of corruption should be banned from politics for life.

Additionally, 61.68 percent believed that politicians convicted of election fraud should be banned from elections for good, the NIDA poll showed. Enditem