Thai Parliament approves election system charter change

Thailand’s Parliament has approved a constitutional amendment changing how lawmakers are elected, a move expected to allocate more seats to big parties at the expense of smaller ones

BANGKOK -- Thailand’s Parliament on Friday approved a constitutional amendment changing how lawmakers are elected, a move expected to allocate more seats to big parties at the expense of smaller ones. The change, passed at a joint session of the House and Senate by a vote of 472 to 33, with 187 abstentions, comes into effect after the expected approval of King Maha Vajiralongkorn. The amendment is a legacy of the long and bitter political struggle between supporters and opponents of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, a billionaire populist who was ousted as prime minister by a 2006 military coup. The system of mixed-member proportional representation approved Friday will give voters two separate ballots instead of the single one used in the 2019 election. One will be for their favored candidate in single-seat constituencies, and the other for the political party they support. Four hundred members of the House will be directly elected, while the 100 party list posts will be divided according to the nationwide party preference votes.