UN election monitors spread across Bangkok and beyond
PHOTOS: The Nation
Foreign observers representing the United Nations have fanned out across the capital and its outskirts today to monitor the long-delayed election. Today’s national election, the first since 2011, is also the first since the military-backed NCPO seized power in May 2014.
Four four-member teams wearing pale-blue vests were assigned to polling stations in Bangkok, Nonthaburi and Pathum Thani to monitor the electoral process, according to a UN official.
The EC briefed representatives of election commissions from Australia, Bhutan, Cambodia, Malaysia, Maldives, Myanmar, Indonesia, Philippines, South Korea, East Timor, and Vietnam at the Rama Gardens Hotel in Bangkok at 9.45am yesterday morning.
Representatives of the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance also attended yesterday’s session.
Jarungwit says the EC allowed the representative to monitor the election to show that the polls would be transparent, clean and fair so that the international community would have confidence in the next government.
The teams are watching for any issues that might occur as citizens freely exercise their democratic rights in today’s poll. Polls close at 5pm today around the nation and the alcohol ban extends through to 6pm tonight.
