Blunder leads to govt losing vote on CDA

The Pheu Thai Party yesterday made a grave error by neglecting to check the coalition’s attendance before a committee vote – and suffered a humiliating defeat on a key clause for the formation of the Constitution Drafting Assembly.
After weeks of fiery vetting of the charter amendment bill, House committee chair Samart Kaewmechai called for a vote on the government-sponsored clause outlining the CDA’s formation.
Under the government draft, the CDA will comprise 99 seats, of which 77 will be directly elected to represent each province and 22 are to be picked by Parliament from a pool of academics.
The CDA clause is seen as the lynchpin in framing a new charter.
When the vote was called, Samart failed to notice that a number of Pheu Thai MPs had stepped out of the meeting room. Consequently, the outcome was the dropping of the clause by a 12-to-10 vote despite the coalition’s majority in the committee.
The total number of committee members is 45.
The self-inflicted defeat resulted in the committee engaging in a heated debate on the implications of the vote. The committee then adjourned with several unanswered questions.
Samart conceded his mistake in calling the vote without checking attendance.
He was seen huddled with Pheu Thai MPs and making several telephone calls trying to undo the vote.
The Democrats, meanwhile, said the vote was final, arguing that the committee had no choice but to pick one of the nine alternative versions in lieu of the defeated clause.
The alternative versions propose differing formulas for the CDA, all prescribing 150 to 200 seats. The Democrats sponsored seven alternative versions. The remaining two were each sponsored by Senator Jetn Siratharanont and Pheu Thai MP Weng Tojirakarn. Weng proposed all 200 members of the CDA be elected.
Pheu Thai MP Cholnan Srikaew said he believed the committee would call for a re-vote at the next session because the government-sponsored clause could not be dropped since it was integral to and indispensable to the entire draft. However, if the committee cannot vote again, the Pheu Thai camp still has a chance to make changes when the draft is sent to the parliamentary meeting.