Thailand set for 'cleanest poll yet'

There are concerted efforts to wipe out money politics

Thailand's general election on Saturday has been billed as the cleanest poll ever in the kingdom's history.

Ambitious reforms, launched under a landmark 1997 constitution, aim to wipe out the endemic corruption in Thai politics.

In place are the strongest-ever safeguards against vote-buying, which has long been a problem in Thai elections.

There were several re-votes because of graft in last year's Senate poll

In the past, parties would hand out bundles of cash to rural voters.

Now, merely handing out tokens such as T-shirts and badges can land candidates with "red cards", which bar them from public office for five years.

But there are fears that "cash democracy" is too firmly entrenched in the country. Some analysts have said that voters and politicians are too familiar with patronage politics to grasp the new system.

Crooks thrown out

The Election Commission (EC), set up under the 1997 anti-corruption constitution, is empowered to throw out crooked politicians and order re-elections in fraud-tainted polls.

Under the guidelines, the media cannot run stories with strong campaign messages

New methods of vote-counting and a new ballot sheet to minimise vote tampering have also been introduced.

The Commission made a concerted attempt to clean up politics in last year's Senate elections, disqualifying dozens of candidates in the first round of polls because of cheating.

Before, we had candidates who never did any real campaigning. They got votes simply by... giving away money

Election Commissioner

This year, it has been just as busy.

In the Bangkok office of EC commissioner Gothom Arya, there are many goods confiscated as evidence of possible bribery - bags of rice, cooking utensils, cooking oil and canned food.

The Commissioner said the rules have forced politicians to change their behaviour.

"Before, we had candidates who never did any real campaigning. They got votes simply by sending out canvassers, giving away money and so on," he told the BBC.

Election re-runs

Last year's Senate elections gave some indication of what might be expected in this poll - round after round of results were thrown out due to corruption.

This year's election, which involves 37 parties, appears likely to stretch over a few months - something which will not augur well with financial markets, which loathe uncertainty.

The Commission has already unearthed so much evidence of fraud that re-votes will probably have to be held in dozens of constituencies.

Mr Thaksin has been indicted by the anti-corruption body

Three candidates have also been pulled up for vote-buying, while the frontrunner in the race, Thaksin Shinawatra, has been indicted for hiding his assets, although the process to bar him from politics could still take many months.

But despite the tide of evidence of fraud, Pollwatch Foundation has said the situation has progressed.

"People now have a voice to raise complaints about corruption, so we get the wrong impression that things are worse," the monitoring group's secretary Somchai Srisuthiyakorn told the French news agency AFP.

He estimated the situation to be "probably 50% better".

"We have to go step by step," Mr Gothom told the BBC, adding that if standards were set too high, they were unlikely to be achieved.

A clean election victory will not just be an achievement for Thailand - it will send a message to the rest of the region that it is possible to fight corruption in their young democracies.