The Shameless Political Instrument II

Following on from our previous report, it is now reported that the Secretary General of the Electoral Commission, Sawaeng Boonmee, recalls that the EC “has stopped its investigation into the origins of the 3 million baht donation made by Chinese to the (military) Palang Pracharath Party is done. businessman Chaiyanat Kornchayanant, after it could not be determined by any authority whether the donated money was the proceeds of crime…’.

Who is Chaiyanat Kornchayanant?

The Bangkok Post reported in January 2023 that the criminal, also known as Tuhao, has been in custody since November 2022. He and 40 others faced multiple charges, including “narcotics crimes, illegal sales of narcotics, money laundering, participation in a transnational criminal organization, illegal possession of firearms and bullets, illegal operation of entertainment venues, and employment and housing of illegal migrants.”

These charges stem from “a 332-page investigative report that police filed with the Attorney General’s Office…. National Police Chief Pol Gen Damrongsak Kittiprapas oversaw the investigation into the case, which also included the seizure of assets worth more than 5 billion baht in early 2023.

Interestingly, the dismissed deputy chief of the national police, Surachate Hakparn, was one of the police officers involved in the investigation team.

As the investigation continued, six police officers were fired in January 2023. One of them was “Chaiyanat’s wife, the niece of a former national police chief.”

She is Colonel Wattanaree Kornchayanant and is accused of money laundering. Wattanaree is the niece of police general Pracha Promnok.

At least three generals and dozens of immigration officials were accused of involvement.

So plenty of investigations, hundreds of pages of documentation, many indictments and some convictions, including Chaiyanat’s.

But not enough for the Electoral Commission and, it seems, for the Anti-Money Laundering Office or the National Anti-Corruption Commission.

This time, Sawaeng was able to recall the details of the investigation, stating that to “determine whether donations to a political party are ‘dirty money’… he said the agencies involved must prove that the money indeed represents the proceeds of criminal activity. He added that the “EC has no authority to assess whether the donation to a party was legal unless first determined by the Anti-Money Laundering Office or the National Anti-Corruption Commission.”

Helpfully pointing out his office’s double standards by stating “that the donation Chaiyanat gave to the Palang Pracharath Party was a separate issue from the ‘loan’ given at the time to the now defunct Future Forward Party, Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit , had been granted, for which the EC had been given permission to investigate and judge.”

In the reports we’ve seen, he didn’t explain the double standards.