'Amnesty bill a lesson for all'

Ekachai Chainuvati, deputy dean of law at a private university, said the first lesson from the protests against this bill is that people have learned that they can overcome a parliamentary dictatorship via democratic means. 

The second lesson that people need to realise is that according to the Constitution, national reforms can only be put in place after general elections. If reform precedes elections, then there will be no legitimate institutions acting as a legislature. 

The future of Thai politics will be tough to predict without reading the new charter, as it would be a key factor in determining the country’s fate. 

“If the new charter is written transparently and effectively enforced so political parties and the people abide by the rules, the country will have a better future,” Ekachai said. 

Attasit Pankeaw, a political scientist at Thammasat University, said Pheu Thai promoted the amnesty bill ahead of the election that they won, meaning Thais should accept a democratic government agenda. 

“People should be more interested in following the legislative process exercised by MPs, so they can regulate their conduct,” he said. “Thais should also learn to ensure their MPs represent the people’s agenda rather than that of their party or themselves.” 

Political scientist Sirote Klampai-boon said people have to admit that the amnesty bill was not wrong. Thailand’s political history shows that amnesty bills have been passed several times shortly after military coups.

“Military juntas have put through amnesty bills many times before, so proposing this amnesty bill last year should not have posed such a problem,” he said. 

The blanket amnesty bill was aimed at forgiving political offences, especially those committed by anti-government protesters, and those who  turned up at the rallies for no particular reason and ended up being put in prison. He said proposing amnesty on the basis of forgiving these people is legitimate, adding that the problem was that the bill was wrongly interpreted and used as a political tool to discredit political opponents. 

The political conflict will likely continue, because the longstanding problem of colour-coded politics has not been solved, he pointed out.