ABSTRACT
Yuttapol Srimungkun, who was elected a Democrat member of parliament (MP) for Mahasarakham in 1975, but failed in subsequent elections, attributed the rise in vote-buying to changes in electoral legislation enacted in 1979. This legislation banned candidates from showing films and using traditional entertainers at election rallies, eliminating a very low-cost form of campaigning. The campaign issues for politicians and for PollWatch were exactly the same: time and money. Even though in Thai the word for "campaigning", ha siang, means "wooing votes", the central electioneering activity is more accurately described as ha huakhanaen, "wooing canvassers". The next stage of the campaign involved the intermediaries meeting up with the huakhanaen, allocating work, and paying them. There are obvious similarities in the organisation of electoral campaigns and PollWatch both in terms of timing – the six-week plan – and personnel. Even with the rush to hi-tech methods of electioneering, the bulk of the campaign took place at the village level.
