The National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) said it requires every political party to send their policy corruption risk assessment criteria reports to the Election Commission (EC) as soon as possible as the EC will submit the results to the NACC after this Sunday's election.
The NACC said it wanted to clarify its urgent letter issued on May 3 to every political party, adding the requirement was one of the legal inspection processes to prevent election fraud, Phuthep Taweechotthanakun, the NACC's deputy spokesman, said yesterday.
The agency approved the requirement on Feb 1 before passing it to the EC, citing Section 32 of the Organic Law on Corruption Prevention. Mr Phuthep said the section gives full authority to the NACC to propose any measures to the cabinet and related sectors in a bid to prevent corruption, including setting up the mechanisms that help them prevent such acts from occurring.
The EC will apply the requirement using its authority under Section 57 of the Organic Law on Political Parties, said Mr Phuthep.
The EC is required to gather the corruption risk assessment reports and draw conclusions from the results after the election, he said.
To provide the quantitative information to the NACC, the EC was required to send the following to it: the list of registered political parties, the list of elected political parties, the list of those making the assessment reports and those that did not, and the list of coalitions and those that conducted the assessment reports as part of a policy development process.
The EC was also required to send qualitative information to the NACC, which included comments from both the commission and the elected parties on the assessment.
According to Mr Phuthep, the report was developed from a corruption risk assessment report conducted on public projects, which the cabinet approved in June 2019. The report is used as a mechanism to help establish the transparency of the parties' campaign policies.
It is expected to help prevent policy corruption, which has been rife in recent years, from damaging the economy and society.
It also serves as a platform for the parties to display their visions in relation to their campaign policies, which helps voters make informed decisions, said Mr Phuthep.