Govt to compromise on CDA elections
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The government is willing to meet the opposition's demand on the electoral rules for the Constitution Drafting Assembly, coalition chief whip Udomdej Rattanasatien said on Tuesday.
“Should the opposition reciprocate by speeding up the debate on charter amendment bill, the government won’t mind revising the draft to meet the opposition’s demand,” he said.
Udomdej was speaking ahead of today’s meeting of coalition, opposition, senatorial whips plus the representatives of the Election Commission to thrash out the differences over the CDA electoral rules.
Despite devoting two of the past seven days to debating the contentious clause, Parliament remains unable to vote on the electoral rules.
The EC is proposing to enact a new law on CDA elections. The coalition is pushing for the local elections law to apply for the one-off poll. The opposition argues that the electoral rules for senatorial elections should be applied as they are designed to weed out partisanship.
Udomdej said the EC’s proposal was impractical due to time constraints, hinting at a choice between the coalition’s local elections law and the opposition’s senatorial elections law.
The opposition is relying on a delaying tactic by reserving the right to speak from the floor in order to oppose the charter amendment bill while the government wants to push for the bill’s speedy passage by next month in order to complete the charter change by the year end.
