The Constitutional Court on Wednesday ruled unanimously that Section 128 of the MP election law on detailed list-MP calculation is constitutional.
The ruling clears the way for the Election Commission (EC) to announce the names of list MPs allocated to political parties.
The court said that Section 128 of the MP election law and Section 91 of the constitution set a method to calculate and allocate list MPs so that there would be 150 of them in line with Section 83 of the constitution.
Although Section 128 of the MP election law was more detailed than Section 91 of the constitution, Section 128 only gave details of the calculation method to ensure the number of list MPs met the requirement of the constitution in the event the initial list MP allocation could not install all 150 list MPs.
Therefore, Section 128 of the MP election law posed no problems about constitutionality, the Constitutional Court ruled.
The ruling was expected to prompt the EC to announce the list of party-list MPs later on Wednesday. It was made in response to a petition from the Ombudsman.
The issue of which list MP calculation formula should be used in deciding the number of list MPs for each party is crucial after constituency-based election results showed the anti-coup coalition had only a few seats more than the pro-military side.
One formula would give the anti-junta side the numbers to form a government, while another would give the pro-regime side the leverage.
An EC source earlier said a total of 27 parties should receive at least one party-list MP based on the EC's calculation method. It appears to favour small parties that won fewer votes than the number required to get a seat under the complicated mixed-member apportionment system, according to political observers.