BANGKOK, April 24 (Xinhua) -- Thailand's constitutional court on Wednesday rejected the election commission's call for a ruling on the counting formula for party-list MP seats.
The judges of the constitutional court voted seven against two to turn down the petition to rule on the matter, on grounds that such matter remains within the authority and duty of the polling agency in the first place, regarding the constitution's Article 91 and the organic law's Article 128 pertaining to the election of MPs.
The constitutional court ruled that the election commission has not as yet used the authority or carried out the duty to work on any counting formula for party-list MP seats, which was otherwise bound to follow the polling agency's announcement of the results of the March 24 election for constituency-based MP seats.
The election commission has apparently avoided making decisions on the counting formula after contestant parties had insisted that a mininum of 71,000 votes would translate into one MP seat on party-list basis. That number was roughly calculated from a total of votes for each contestant party divided by 500, which is the total of MP seats in the parliament.
The election commission has allegedly planned to give a dozen splinter parties one MP seat each though they reportedly won less than 71,000 votes.
The polling agency was required by law to announce the results of the election by May 9.
