Srisuwan Janya, secretary of the Association for the Protection of the Constitution, said on Sunday he will submit a petition to the Election Commission, calling for the agency to investigate whether Future Forward Party leader Thanathorn Juangroongruangkij has violated the election law after inaccurate information in his biography was published on the party's website.
Mr Srisuwan said the petition will be submitted to the EC on Monday at 10am.
He said that according to information published on the Future Forward website, Mr Thanathorn was president of the Federation of Thai Industry between 2008-2012. The information was incorrect because in fact the Future Forward leader was president of the Nakhon Nayok chapter of the federation during the time.
The inaccurate information appeared on the party's website for over five months and also appeared on the crowd-sourced Wikipedia website. Although the false information was later removed, he argued, it had already been widespread in the public domain.
Since the information was visible to the public while the royal decree on the election was in effect, Mr Srisuwan said the false information could be construed as intended to entice votes for the party's candidates in violation of Section 73 (5) of the Election Act of 2018.
If found guilty of violating the law, Mr Thanathorn could be liable to a jail term of 1-10 years. a fine of 20,000-200,000 baht, or both. He could also be banned from elections for 20 years, Mr Srisuwan said.
Since legal experts have debated whether Mr Thanathorn broke the law intentionally, it would be best for the EC to gather evidence and ask a court to make a ruling on the case to set a legal precedent, he added.
Mr Thanathorn has said the statement in his biography on the website that he was the national chairman of the Federation of Thai Industry, rather than just the Nakhon Nayok chapter, was an unintentional editing error.
Mr Srisuwan said he will also submit another petition for the EC to investigate whether Piyabutr Saengkanokkul, secretary-general of the Future Forward Party, had violated Section 73 (5) of the Election Act for saying on his Facebook page that "state officials have collaborated with some groups of news media to produce material that portrayed northeastern people as being buffoons and uneduated."
The post may be construed as using false information to insult people, he said.