The permanent Senate of Thailand is composed of 200 senators, chosen by and among "persons having the knowledge, expertise, experience, profession, or characteristics or common interests or working or having worked in varied areas of the society". It is a
non-partisan body, and all candidates will run as
independents. Senators serve five-year terms and are ineligible for re-election thereafter. The rules for the election are laid down in the 2018
Organic Act on the Acquisition of Senators. Candidates must be Thai nationals by birth, at least 40 years old, and have a minimum of 10 years experience in their field. The 20 groups include: • Public administration and national security group • Law and justice group • Education group • Public health group • Rice or emblements farmer group • Orchardists, persons who work in forests, ranch, and fishing group • Employees excluding governmental employees group • Persons who work in the environmental, city planning, real estate and utilities, natural resource, and energy field group • SME entrepreneurs and other group • Entrepreneurs other than (9) group • Persons who work in the tourism field group • Industrialists and similar group • Persons who work in the scientific, technological, communications, innovative, or similar field group • Women group • Elderly, disabled, ethnic minority and other identity groups • Arts, culture, music, performance and entertainment group • NGOs group • Persons in sports, mass media and literature group • Freelancer group • Other group They must have some connection to the district they seek to contest in. They must also pay a 2,500
baht application fee. Candidates cannot be members of a political party. Also prohibited from contesting are
civil servants, current and former
member of parliaments, former
government ministers, former local administrators, former political party executives (unless they have been out of their post for at least five years), parents, spouses and children of senatorial candidates. Members of the transitional Senate cannot run. Senators are elected among applicant candidates pool, without any participation from non-candidates. Each candidate applies to represent one of 20 eligible groups, and ten senators will be elected from each group. There are six rounds of voting, two each at the
district,
provincial, and national level. Notably, the public cannot observe the voting process, except the candidates themselves.
Timeline At the district level, the candidates will vote within their group. In each district, the five candidates in each group with the most votes will advance to the second round. In the second round, each candidate will be assigned 3–5 random groups (other than their own), and vote for the candidates in those groups. The top three candidates in each group in each district will then advance, for a total of 60 candidates in each district. The provincial level process will occur on 16 June. Because the number of districts in each province varies (anywhere between three and 50), the number of candidates in each province will vary significantly. Candidates will first narrow the number of candidates in their group to 5. They will then again vote for candidates in other groups. They may or may not be assigned the same groups to vote in at the provincial level than at the district level. There will now be 2 candidates in each group in each province, for a total of 3,080 remaining candidates nationwide. The process will then move on to the national level, where the remaining 3,080 candidates will repeat the intra and inter-group voting to elect 10 senators from each of the 20 groups. The number of candidates each voter is allowed to vote for varies depending on the round. The system lends itself to
limited voting. At the district and provincial level, each voter will have two votes within their group, and one vote for the inter-group election. At the national level, a voter may have ten votes for the intra-group election, and five for the inter-group election. The candidates with the most votes will proceed, and all others will be eliminated. There is no minimum threshold of votes required to be elected. Candidates may vote for themselves in the intra-group elections. A voter may not cast more than one vote for a single candidate. A voter does not need to use all of their votes. ==Criticism==