The Senate election was as much anticipated as it was convoluted with plenty of ironies.
Dubbed by critics as the most complex Senate poll in the world, the election, the result of which is expected on July 2, was eventful, to say the least, according to observers.
The final, national-voting round took place on Wednesday and has already ignited complaints of vote rigging, among other alleged irregularities.
It was the second time members of the Upper House were elected, although not by the people this time, but by professional groups nationwide.
The first fully and directly elected Senate with 200 members, whose term extended over six years, took office in 1997.
Critics, among the most vocal of whom is the main opposition Move Forward Party, slammed having an election that was off-limits to the people.
The Senate poll -- designed as a prominent feature of the current constitution drawn up during the previous Prayut Chan-o-cha administration -- called for a three-tier election at the district, provincial and national levels.
At the district level, there was an intra-group election in which five candidates with the highest number of votes in each group proceeded to an inter-group election. In the inter-group poll, the three candidates with the highest number of votes were shortlisted per group, or 60 across 20 groups.
The shortlisted candidates repeated a similar process at the provincial level. But this time, during the inter-group poll, only two candidates with the most votes in each group progressed to the final national stage in which the top 10 from each of the 20 groups were selected as senators.
All the voting dragged on for the best part of this month: the district contest on June 9, the provincial on June 16, and the national election on the 26th.
Despite what many observers described as a time-consuming and tedious poll, it managed to attract 46,206 successful applicants after 2,020 others were invalidated due to their failure to meet candidacy criteria. However, some observers thought the number had fallen well short of the 100,000-plus people others had expected to contest it.
Some analysts agreed that even though the Senate race was not the easiest election to organise, a look through the candidacy database reveals a horde of candidates with moderate to humble professional profiles.
According to the analysts, in the past, the Senate, either appointed or elected, has long been dismissed as an exclusive club where seats were "reserved" for movers and shakers, including top businessmen, ex-officials and those with close ties to top politicians.
This time around, the Senate poll promised something different, and it resonated with many professionals, the analysts said.
For starters, candidates were charged a modest registration fee of 2,500 baht. For the first time, several professionals with good experience in their respective careers thought they could make the cut and might have a shot at winning recognition from fellow professionals in other fields and going on to become senators.
"It was their chance to foray into territory long dominated by the rich and powerful. The Senate comes across as finally being accessible," according to an analyst.
However, the Senate poll was anything but smooth sailing. Even before the law governing the Senate election was invoked, allegations were directed at certain political parties for "singling out" prospective candidates as "one of them", sharing their ideology and supporting their cause.
Senators are required by law to be independent of political parties.
When the candidacy rules were revealed by the Election Commission (EC), they instantly triggered a backlash, mostly from the candidates themselves.
The EC faced a petition in the Central Administrative Court (CAC) for prohibiting candidates from introducing themselves through social and mass media. They were limited to giving out details about themselves to intra-and inter-professional groups among them who were to vote at all three levels.
The CAC later told the EC to drop the regulation preventing candidates from disclosing details of their personal and career backgrounds on social media platforms and through mass media outlets.
The EC did not appeal the court's decision.
The commission also recently found itself in hot water for invalidating some candidates because their districts only had one group of applicants. The EC was warned this could be against the law.
The EC blundered by excluding applicants in seven districts that only had applicants for one of the 20 professional groups. The commission most likely lacked the authority to invalidate candidacy on that basis, said Komsan Pohkong, deputy dean of the Faculty of Law at Rangsit University and an expert from the House committee on the 1997 charter draft.
He suggested the EC instead extend the registration period for those districts before the June 9 vote. The Senate election law states that the process should have continued with the available candidates.
The EC has maintained the invalidation was done by the book.
Sawang Boonmee, the EC secretary-general, said on May 27 that seven districts out of 928 had just one group of applicants. They were Muang Yang district in Nakhon Ratchasima, Sam Chai district in Kalasin, Mae Rim, Na Noi and Chiang Klang districts in Nan, Pang Sila Thong district in Kamphaeng Phet and Umphang district in Tak.
He said EC regulations stipulate a cross-group election. As those seven districts lacked other groups for the cross-group vote, their candidates were not valid.
However, the biggest bombshell came with caretaker senator Somchai Swangkarn's allegation that up to 149 Senate candidates had already been named winners at the district and provincial levels before the voting had taken place.
He disclosed what he claimed was a list of candidates who knew in advance they would win the district and provincial-level vote.
The 149 candidates were identified only by their initials, the number of their professional groups, and the provinces in which they were competing.
Mr Somchai also threatened legal action against all those involved in collusion, including a number of politicians who supposedly hired these candidates to run for the Senate as part of a vote manipulation ploy.
EC chairman Ittiporn Boonpracong has vowed an unhindered investigation into the allegation. However, he believed the list was unlikely to be genuine as he was not aware of any such malpractice before.
Moving election goalposts
Politicians are reportedly considering making changes to the country's election system once again and this time around it could spell the end of the party-list method.
The previous revision to the elections of MPs was introduced before last year's general election; it saw the return of the dual-ballot method and the rejigging of constituency and list-MP numbers, with constituency MPs increasing from 350 to 400, and list-MPs decreasing from 150 to 100.
The latest electoral system change bid was recently revealed by Khunying Sudarat Keyuraphan, leader of the opposition Thai Sang Thai Party (TST).
Quoting a source in the ruling Pheu Thai Party, the veteran politician said Pheu Thai's charter amendment proposals would include scrapping the party-list system, so that the total number of constituency MPs would be 500.
This is believed to be a Pheu Thai strategy to undermine the growing influence and popularity of the main opposition Move Forward Party (MFP).
According to a King Prajadhipok's Institute survey released in May, the MFP would likely win 208 House seats, compared with 151 it captured last year, if the election was held soon.
Pheu Thai, however, would retain only about 105 seats if the polls were to take place now, a significant drop from the 141 seats the party won last year.
However, Khunying Sudarat's remark was dismissed as baseless by Pheu Thai heavyweights.
Sudarat: 'Pheu Thai wants changes'
Khunying Sudarat formerly served as a Pheu Thai deputy leader before a reported rift with party stalwarts drove her to leave and form the TST.
Deputy Prime Minister and Commerce Minister Phumtham Wechayachai jokingly suggested that Khunying Sudarat might have heard about it in a dream, while Pheu Thai list-MP Noppadon Pattama urged the public not to waste time discussing it because the notion to scrap the party-list method never existed.
However, Khunying Sudarat told the Bangkok Post that she heard from Pheu Thai MPs that their party was contemplating dumping the party-list system to counter the MFP.
This is because the party has assessed that its current strategy of consolidating MPs from political families, known in Thai as "Ban Yai" [Big Houses], may not be enough to guarantee dominance in the next polls, according to Khunying Sudarat.
Thanaporn Sriyakul, director of the Political and Public Policy Analysis Institute, does not believe dropping the party-list system can dent the MFP's election chances as the party is going from strength to strength.
Citing the results of the previous election, the MFP lost by a small margin of between 100-700 votes, in 60 constituencies. The party also bagged more than 14 million votes in the party-list race nationwide, which could be "channelled" into the constituency system.
"The MFP has strong support throughout the country. If the party adopts the right election strategy, it can win seats in constituencies it didn't win in last year and has a chance of garnering a majority with more than 250 seats in the House of Representatives," he said.
Mr Thanaporn said he found the "talk" about Pheu Thai trying to drop the party-list system highly unlikely because it will also look at the MFP's losses when mapping out its election strategy.
However, according to Phichai Ratnatilaka Na Bhuket, programme director for politics and development strategy at the National Institute of Development Administration, an election minus the party-list system cannot be ruled out.
After the 2019 election, there were rumours that Pheu Thai and the PPRP tried having the party list scrapped, which led to the charter amendments in which the single ballot method reverted to the dual-ballot one where the number of list-MPs decreased.
With some pundits predicting the MFP could win more list seats in the next polls, Pheu Thai strategists and paroled former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who is highly respected by Pheu Thai, might not want to take chances with the MFP's rise in popularity, he said.
"It's possible that some Pheu Thai figures think the MFP can win at least 60 list seats, leaving only 40 seats to be shared among the remaining parties. So, Pheu Thai strategists may not want its main political opponent to benefit [from the list system]," he said.
As it turned out, the main opposition party was given a boost by the party-list system in the last two elections, according to observers.
In the 2019 election, the Future Forward Party (FFP), the MFP's predecessor, was awarded the largest number of party-list seats, while Pheu Thai did not get any.
The FFP was later dissolved over an illegal loan it obtained from party leader Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit.
In last year's polls, both the MFP and Pheu Thai won 112 constituency seats. However, the MFP secured 39 list seats -- 10 more than the ruling party -- and emerged as the election winner.