Khun Ying Sudarat led the Thai Sang Thai Party to lay flowers in mourning at the site of the collapsed Audit Office building, announcing a campaign to eradicate corruption. She criticized the office for being a supervisory agency yet engaging in corruption itself, highlighted three key measures, and declared the time of unpunished corruption was over, achievable within six months.
On 10 Jan 2026 GMT+7, Khun Ying Sudarat Kaeuyrapan, leader of the Thai Sang Thai Party (TST) and the party's prime ministerial candidate, led a team to inspect the construction site of the Office of the Auditor General (Audit Office). She laid flowers to mourn the tragic collapse that caused great loss. Khun Ying Sudarat said that although over 288 days (about nine and a half months) have passed, the damage remains as a reminder of the severe consequences of corruption and lowered construction standards, which led to 95 deaths. She questioned who is responsible. Engineering investigations clearly show the collapse was not a natural disaster; though an earthquake triggered it, the root cause was severe reduction in material specifications, including using steel and concrete below standard, weakening the structure’s ability to withstand vibrations. Importantly, corruption was found in fake material deliveries and forged quality certification documents. Prosecutors have charged 23 defendants, mostly private sector, engineers, and contractors, but high-ranking officials and politicians have not yet faced charges. The Audit Office, which is supposed to supervise, itself engaged in corruption and provided no answers, and even the National Anti-Corruption Commission’s investigations have stalled.
Khun Ying Sudarat further stated that corruption is a malignant cancer that steals more than 500 billion baht annually from the national budget, equivalent to 3% of GDP. Instead of this vast sum being used to build security and welfare for the people, it enriches corrupt officials and those in power, hindering Thailand’s economic growth to no more than 2% and pushing household debt to record highs.
The Thai Sang Thai Party declared a war on corruption with three decisive anti-graft measures to shift power back to the people: 1. Raise the maximum penalty to capital punishment for politicians and government officials found guilty of corruption.
2. Empower citizens to petition with 50,000 signatures to immediately remove independent organizations and the Constitutional Court if they are found to benefit corrupt individuals.
3. Establish a “Civil Society Anti-Corruption Commission” to enable ordinary people and the private sector to participate in auditing government projects and legally prosecute offenders. Khun Ying Sudarat pledged that if given the opportunity to govern, she would push these three anti-corruption measures to completion within the first six months to eliminate patronage and under-the-table systems in Thai society, and to recover stolen budget funds to provide real welfare and opportunities for the people to improve their lives.
