Thanathorn targets election body

Thanathorn targets election body

Lawsuit comes as share ruling looms

Future Forward Party (FFP) leader Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit on Monday filed a lawsuit with the Criminal Court against all seven members of the Election Commission (EC) for forwarding the V-Luck Media shareholding case to the Constitutional Court, party spokeswoman Pannika Wanich said.

The move comes ahead of the Constitutional Court's ruling on the case tomorrow.

Ms Pannika said the complaint was lodged with the Central Criminal Court for Corruption and Misconduct Cases.

"They failed to exercise their power to investigate the alleged media shareholding case thoroughly," she said

"As Mr Thanathorn has said, they rushed to submit the case to the Constitutional Court [on May 16] before its sub-committee finished its probe. It raises the question of whether it was politically motivated," she told a press conference yesterday.

Ms Pannika said the EC's haste in sending the case to court caused serious damage to Mr Thanathorn.

"It resulted in the Constitutional Court suspending him as an MP and misled people into believing that he registered as a candidate despite not being eligible," she said.

The FFP spokeswoman questioned why some media shares cases were not pursued while others were.

"Thailand's constitution bars politicians from owning media shares for fear that they will use them to their own political advantage. However, there is a politician whose media ownership background is widely known, but she cannot be touched [because] the PPRP's Watanya Wongopasi quit the Nation Multimedia Group Plc and asked her husband Chai Bunnag to be the CEO," she said.

"The most blatant case is the media share ownership of the husband [Mr Chai] of the MP [Ms Watanya]. No legal action can be taken because the person who owns media shares is not that politician," she said.

On the flip side, "more than 10 politicians are facing media shareholding accusation because their shareholder lists [Bor Or Jor 5] stipulate that their businesses can serve as media even though in reality they are a construction firm, a kindergarten school, etc", Ms Pannika said.

"In some cases, politicians who have already provided all evidence to prove that they transferred shares before the MP registration have suffered the same fate," she added.

The spokeswoman then rounded on the Nation Multimedia Group itself and accused it of only reporting news for its own advantage and also of recently setting up the Thai Move Institute to try to boost its credibility.

Its founders include Chai Bunnag, Sonthiyan Chunruthainaitham, Wathin Chatkoon, and Chatchai Pookokwai.

"Nation Channel's FFP coverage amounts to 36 minutes per day over nine news bulletins. Between Nov 1-10, the Komchadluek news analysis programme's FFP coverage amounted to 44.44% of its total air time. It interviewed people who not only had negative opinions about the FFP but also all opposition parties without including opposing views," she said.

Ms Watanya later responded by saying she is considering taking legal action against Ms Pannika for the press conference outburst.

She said she has never held any executive position at Nation Multimedia Group.

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