{"id":55451,"date":"2026-03-14T12:58:39","date_gmt":"2026-03-14T12:58:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/?p=55451"},"modified":"2026-03-14T13:01:23","modified_gmt":"2026-03-14T13:01:23","slug":"thai-parliament-to-open-amid-scrutiny-over-election-ballots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/?p=55451","title":{"rendered":"Thai parliament to open amid scrutiny over election ballots"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

(Reuters) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

BANGKOK, March 14 – Thai King Maha Vajiralongkorn formally opened the \u200bnew parliament on Saturday, as last month’s\u00a0general election<\/a>\u00a0result faces court scrutiny over \u200cbarcodes on the ballots that may have violated the law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The barcodes might undermine the secrecy of the ballot, said the country’s Office of the Ombudsman, which petitioned the Constitutional Court to consider \u200bthe case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prime Minister\u00a0Anutin Charnvirakul’s<\/a>\u00a0Bhumjaithai Party won a clear victory in the \u200bFebruary 8 election, but the ombudsman said late on Friday that \u2060there had been 21 public complaints that barcodes and QR codes on the ballots could \u200bpotentially be used to identify which party or candidate a given voter had chosen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The \u200bcourt annulled a 2006 election on the grounds that the voting process had not been conducted in secret.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Election Commission has said the barcodes were included for security purposes and that identifying \u200ba voter would require access to the upper half of the ballots, which were \u200bsecurely stored.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bhumjaithai, which won at least 191 seats in the 500-member parliament, has said it will \u200cform \u2060a ruling coalition<\/a> with the third-placed Pheu Thai Party and several smaller groups, giving the alliance more than 290 seats and raising the prospect of a stable government after years of political volatility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In brief remarks to lawmakers in the parliament building, King Vajiralongkorn urged \u200bthem to perform \u200btheir duty to “uphold \u2060what is right and have the well-being of the people as their highest goal”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lawmakers are scheduled to reconvene on Sunday to \u200bendorse a new house speaker and two deputy speakers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Deputy Prime Minister \u200bSophon Zaram, \u2060a veteran Bhumjaithai politician, told reporters on Thursday the party had nominated him for the speaker’s post.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The new speaker is expected to schedule a parliamentary session to vote \u2060in the \u200bprime minister, almost certain to be the incumbent \u200bAnutin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bhumjaithai deputy leader Siripong Angkasakulkiat told Reuters the vote for prime minister would likely take place on Thursday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Reuters) BANGKOK, March 14 – Thai King Maha Vajiralongkorn formally opened the \u200bnew parliament on Saturday, as last month’s\u00a0general election\u00a0result faces court scrutiny over \u200cbarcodes on the ballots that may have violated the law. The barcodes might undermine the secrecy of the ballot, said the country’s Office of the Ombudsman, which petitioned the Constitutional Court to consider \u200bthe case. Prime Minister\u00a0Anutin Charnvirakul’s\u00a0Bhumjaithai Party won a clear victory in the \u200bFebruary 8 election, but the ombudsman said late on Friday that \u2060there had been 21 public complaints that barcodes and QR codes on the ballots could \u200bpotentially be used to identify… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":55454,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-55451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-in-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55451","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=55451"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55451\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55453,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55451\/revisions\/55453"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/55454"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=55451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=55451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=55451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}