Abstract:
Candidate selection is regarded as one of the most essential duties for a political party. Thailands current candidate selection process as enacted in laws and regulations related to political party reflects the absolute decision-making power held by the partys management committee as well as a lack of democracy where these can lead to many problems. In order to solve such problems, the author has studied on candidate selection by primary elections which political parties in the United States of America use as a key method to select a candidate in each position. According to the study, the above primary election method demonstrates a very democratic candidate selection process. This method allows members of political party at any level or citizens who are entitled to vote to participate in decision making and directly elect the candidates through confidential vote. The author then would like to suggest applying the primary election method in Thailand and adapt it to be suitable with Thai political conditions and political parties by broadly enacting principles and methods in laws. The political parties, at the same time, can determine detailed rules, methods and patterns which are suitable to each party and specify those in its rules and regulations. For the selection of candidates for the members of the House of Representatives on the constituency basis, those parties should adopt direct primary election method and consider the vote results based on absolute majority vote. For the selection of candidates for the members of the House of Representatives on a party-list basis, those parties should adopt indirect primary election method by the national meeting of the political parties and consider the vote results based on simple majority rule.