Surat Thani PAO chairman by-elections on July 26

Last week the newspaper Samui Express reported that the yellow card for PAO chairman Thani Thaugsuban (ธานี เทือกสุบรรณ, see his election poster) and the red card for PAO councilor Surinya Yuennan (สุริญญา ยืนนาน) from Ko Samui was confirmed by the Appeals Court Region 8 (ศาลอุทธรณ์ภาค ๘), so the by-elections for both posts are now imminent.

While I cannot find the actual date of the court decision, on the Thai news website SuratNews.com I could find many more details on these forthcoming elections. Apparently the Election Committee (EC) had, in anticipation of the court decision, already fixed the date for the election to July 26, and has set the candidate registration to June 15-19. Thus now it is already clear who will run for the post of the new chairman, and two of them already run for the last election.

• Damrong Thaugsuban (ดำรงค์ เทือกสุบรรณ), currently PAO councilor for Tha Chana and cousin of Thani Thaugsuban. He has to resign his councilor seat to run for the chairman position, thus Tha Chana will also see a by-election, which is expected to be on July 26 as well. Also, as he is president of the council, a new president has to be elected within 15 days.
• Prawit Ninwatromni (ประวิช นิลวัชรมณี), former mayor of Surat Thani city, Member of Parliament for the Democratic Party as well as Senator
  
• Montri Phetchakhum (มนตรี เพชรขุ้ม), with 31% the second of the last election. It was him who filed the complaint which led to the by-election. See his election poster from last time to the right.
  

As all three showed at the opening of the registration period and could not agree on their candidate numbers themselves, the numbers had to be drawn, giving them the above order. For the vacant councilor for of Samui the following candidates have registered.

• Suwapat Somwang (สุวพัฒน์ สมหวัง), former councilor in the municipal council of Ko Samui.
• Chairin Chansa (เจริญ จันทรา)
  

Candidate registration for the now also vacant Tha Chana district will be held June 22-26. Though Thani Thaugsuban was eligible to run again as he only got a yellow card, he apparently chose to let his cousin run instead. As I am not in Thailand for the election this time I cannot collect photos of the election posters like last time, maybe a reader on location could help me to decorate the posting on the election result then. I just hope the PAO website will show the detailed results again like it did last time.