Boonjong denies link with seminar
Former deputy interior minister Boonjong Wongtrairat has denied involvement in a provincial officers' seminar prior to a by-election in 2010, and questioned the plaintiff's witnesses who were not previously named in the witness list.
The Election Commission asked the Supreme Court's Election Division to revoke Boonjong's voting right for five years. It claimed he violated election laws by taking part in a seminar at Nakhon Ratchasima's community development office with 300 eligible voters at a resort in Rayong during the by-election period.
Boonjong was deputy interior minister at the time and was questioned for sponsoring the event. The laws prohibit a candidate from holding an entertainment event or offering a feast.
Boonjong, who won the by-election, is a Bhum Jai Thai Party executive, and the violation could lead to party dissolution.
He told the court he never stood behind a van parked in front of the auditorium in Nakhon Ratchasima, when the seminar attendants were leaving on buses, as claimed by the EC. He said it was impossible for him to stand behind a van when he officially held the post of a minister, because people would have greeted and taken his photographs.
He said that when he was deputy interior minister he would only preside over an event after receiving an invitation letter, and he did not have an invitation for this seminar.
He said no witnesses claimed to have met him in Chakarat district, Nakhon Ratchasima, or in Rayong - except for two brought in by the EC. He added that he had asked Saipiroon Noisiri, a provincial community development officer, why she had falsely told the EC that he called her on November 19, 2010. She apologised and he asked her to correct the information.
Boonjong said some witnesses recorded their testimony at the office of Apicha Lertpatcharakamol, his Pheu Thai rival who filed the complaint against him in a YouTube clip.
General Weerawut Songsai, former chairman of Nakhon Ratchasima EC, told the court that when the election decree for the poll in Constituency 6 was announced on November 19, 2010, the decree went into effect the following day. Therefore, the provincial probing team had dropped the case. However, the national EC, which has more authority, ordered the case be investigated further. The next hearing is scheduled for today.
THE NATION January 19, 2012 1:00 am
