The survey was carried out among 1,060 Bangkok residents by the Super Poll pollster and the results were announced by its director Noppadon Kannikar on Sunday.

He said 64 per cent of the respondents have no candidate in mind yet although several well-known figures have been tipped as possibles for the Bangkok governor election.

Noppadon said 36 per cent of the respondents said they would vote for the parties they support, such as the Future Forward Party, the Phalang Pracharat Part, the Democrat Party and the Pheu Thai Party. To an open-ended question as to the type of governor they want to elect, 83.8 per cent said they want a governor with integrity and no tainted record, 74.3 per cent said they want a governor who can solve problems fast and who put words into actions while 24.5 per cent said they want a governor with tangible policies.

To another open-ended question on the urgent issues that need to be addressed by the new governor, 79.6 per cent said they want the next governor to solve traffic woes, 56.9 per cent want the governor to address the rising cost of living and the lack of income, 55.1 per cent want the governor to tackle floods while 51.1 per cent cited garbage and pollution as urgent issue, and 50.4 per cent cited crime and lack of safety as urgent issues.

To the same question, 38.9 per cent would like to see the next governor address the mass transportation and 27.7 per cent want the new governor to tackle corruption among agencies of the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration.

The Nida Poll of the National Institute of Development Administration carried out the survey among 1,260 respondents nationwide and announced the results on Sunday.

The Nida Poll found that 46.67 per cent of the respondents felt that the on-going economic woes were due to the government’s lack of ability to solve the economic problems.

In the open-ended question, 29.21 per cent of respondents blamed the woes on rising prices of consumer goods combined with low income and 24.13 per cent said it was down to the global economic slump. Meanwhile, 22.54 per cent of the respondents said the politicians in power have not paid enough attention to tackling economic woes, 20.79 per cent blamed the situation on falling prices of commodities and 13.65 per cent blamed natural disasters.

Nearly 80 per cent of respondents to Super Poll picked traffic jams and road safety as priority issues for Bangkokians while 57 per cent want the new governor to reduce the high cost of living.

Super Poll released its survey on Sunday about the potential candidates for next Bangkok governor, who will be elected later this year.

Asked if they had a preferred candidate from any political party, 64 per cent said they had not made up their minds yet, while 36 per cent said they had in mind Future Forward, Phalang Pracharat, Democrat, Pheu Thai and other parties.

Among student respondents, 59 per cent of them said they already had a favoured political party in mind.

Regarding qualifications of the new governor, 84 per cent of respondents preferred someone who was free from corruption allegations while 73 per cent said they wanted someone who would be pragmatic and would solve their problems quickly.

The polling of 1,060 people took place in Bangkok from September 1 to 7.

The government has drafted a decree to amend an important act on family affairs and submitted it to Parliament for approval on Wednesday. The house is supposed to pass the decree before the current parliamentary session ends on September 18. 

Suthin, as a member of the opposition whip, said that the decree submitted by the government was an abuse of its authority through executive power. Submitting a decree would signify the government’s own mistakes in legislating the act in the first place, and then again by submitting the decree, which he deemed an abuse of power. 

Asked by reporters about a condition in the current Constitution that a government should resign only when a fiscally related act proposed by it was not passed by Parliament, Suthin said though this act concerned family affairs the Prayut government should follow a long-standing parliamentary tradition by resigning.

Sondhi Limthongkul, the former leader of the yellow-shirt nationalist movement, has been released from prison after qualifying for a royal pardon. 

Rights and Liberties Protection Department director-general Naras Savestanan said on Wednesday the 72-year-old co-founder of the People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD) had served three years and one month of the 20-year sentence he was given for falsifying loan documents through Krungthai Bank. 

Naras said there was dispute among members of a judiciary committee as to whether Sondhi was qualified for early release, but the majority sanctioned the pardon.  

He benefited from an earlier exception granted to an inmate whose complaint citing similar qualifications was accepted by a Justice Ministry parole panel. 

Sondhi was released from Bangkok’s Klong Prem Prison at 3pm on Wednesday, about three hours after the authorisation arrived from the Criminal Court.  

He was seen being picked up at the gate by a son and another former PAD leader, Parnthep Wongpuapan. 

A ministry source said there was no political motivation or influence in releasing Sondhi and noted that Sondhi did not personally request the release, but rather benefited from the parole panel’s decision in another case.

He said the debate will run from 9.30am to midnight, and will not be extended. He also set the condition that no other agenda be raised during that allotted time.

As for media speculation that the opposition may want the debate to be extended to the following day, Chuan said this will be “impossible” without a royal decree, which is necessary to extend the current parliamentary session, which wraps up on September 18.

A parliamentary debate to discuss the prime minister’s incomplete oath-taking, which has stirred a controversy, has been proposed for September 18, Energy Minister Sontirat Sontijirawong said on Tuesday.

Sontirat, who is also secretary-general of the ruling coalition leader Phalang Pracharat Party, said the session would not involve any judgement by Parliament. He said a joint decision by whips of the coalition, the opposition and the Senate was needed to confirm the date.

Sonthirat said PM Prayut Chan-o-cha had promised that he would be present to personally respond in the discussions, and the date had been chosen because of the prime minister’s tight schedule as he was available only on September 18.

Asked whether the discussion would be for only one day, because the current parliamentary session will end the next day, Sonthirat said he was awaiting a response from lawmakers on Parliament’s schedule.

PM’s Office Minister Tewan Liptapanlop, who is also an adviser to the coalition coordination committee on parliamentary affairs, said the whips have resolved to ask the Cabinet to select September 11 or 12 for the debate.

Tewan said he is not sure that the Cabinet will make a decision on the date today, noting that the decision would depend on the whether the prime minister and his Cabinet members are scheduled to be tied up with other missions on those days.

The opposition has alleged that Prime Minister failed to say that he would adhere to and protect the charter when he led his Cabinet to take the oath in front of the King. The opposition said such a failure was unconstitutional and the office of the current Cabinet should be considered invalid.

The Supreme Court’s Criminal Division for Persons Holding Political Positions on August 30 acquitted former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra of malfeasance over allegedly influencing the approval of a huge Krung Thai Bank (KTB) loan to property giant Krisda Mahanakorn. The court also withdrew the arrest warrant for the 70-year-old fugitive.

Thaksin was indicted in 2012 under Article 157 of the Criminal Court, as well as violating four offences under as many laws governing financial institutions.

As for why Thaksin was acquitted, the court cited “an unaccredited allegation” as the reason, saying two unnamed individuals had vaguely been referred to, which became a groundless allusion referring to Thaksin and his then-wife Potjaman in a case filed by the National Counter Corruption Commission and the Office of the Attorney General.

The term “big bosses” was reportedly cited at a meeting of high-ranking KTB officials when it was suggested that a sum of money would be given to the “big boss” in exchange for the approval of a Bt99-billion loan to Krisda Mahanakorn, which was already not qualified for being a high-risk borrower.

This case saw the indictment and prosecution of 27 individuals, including Thaksin and Viroj Nualkhair, a former KTB managing director. Viroj briefly served his 18-year prison term before being released recently due to poor health and age.

Paibul came to the EC Office to hand over a cashier check worth Bt882,909. He said the money came from the Political Parties Development Fund as political party subsidy.

He said People Reform had returned to the fund all the political subsidies it got, after the party’s executive board resolved to disband the party citing that party executives did not have the time to carry out political activities.

Paibul said that for his part, he would report its financial statement to the political party registrar within 30 days and the registrar would in turn send it in to the Office of the Auditor-General for verifying within 180 days.

Paibul said after informing the EC of the party’s decision to disband, he had become a former leader of People Reform but retained his MP status.

After the EC published the dissolution of his party, he will have to join a new party within 60 days and planned to join the ruling Phalang Pracharat Party, he added.

He said he had announced from the beginning that he would support Prime Minister General Prayut Chan-o-cha as the prime minister and so his decision to join Phalang Pracharat would not run against his election campaign policy.

The EC has reportedly decided to seek a ruling from the Constitutional Court as to whether a party-list MP could join a new party after his or her party is dissolved. Opponents of allowing the dissolution fear that the formula for calculating the number of party-list seats would be affected, tipping the balance of power in the legislature further toward the ruling coalition.

Paibul said he had so far not been informed that the EC, or any other person, would seek such a ruling from the Constitutional Court. He insisted that his party dissolution and his plan to join the Phalang Pracharat could be done in accordance with the Political Parties Act.