NCPO warns pressure groups to back off

Deputy Defence Minister General Udomdej Sitabutr, who also serves as Army chief, said yesterday that the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) would not resort to the interim charter’s Section 44 if pressure groups do not instigate political rallies.
Government Spokesman Maj-General Sansern Kaewkamnerd said that if talks with the pressure groups failed, Prime Minister General Prayut Chan-o-cha would have no choice but to use Section 44 and enforce harsher measures such as martial law to deal with protesters.
Pressure groups have been threatening to stage rallies over the impeachment of two top politicians from the last elected government.
“We want the pressure groups to understand that in order for the country to move forward, they should not bring back old conflicts,” Sansern said.
Section 44 states that if it is necessary to prevent, disrupt or suppress any act that undermines public peace and order or national security, the NCPO chief shall have the power to order any action regardless of the legislative, executive or judicial sectors.
The National Legislative Assembly (NLA) will today vote on whether it will accept an impeachment case against former Parliament president Somsak Kiatsuranon and his deputy Nikom Wairatpanich over alleged constitutional offences.
The cases were put forward by the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC).
The assembly will start impeachment proceedings against Yingluck Shinawatra, the elected prime minister who was overthrown by Prayut, next Wednesday.
The United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD), meanwhile, has locked horns with the People’s Democratic Reform Committee over the three impeachment cases and is threatening to organise protests if the PDRC pushes the NLA to go ahead with the proceedings.
Udomdej said the NCPO had assessed the situation and believed there was nothing to be worried about.
“It is just a matter of different opinions. We have been talking and making them understand, because we do not want violence to take place,” he said.
Asked whether with more pressure groups coming into play and making more demands it is likely that martial law will be imposed until a new government is installed, the Army chief said the government would assess the situation from time to time.
Prayut, meanwhile, has also questioned the legitimacy of the Thailand Reform Institute (TRI), which was set up last month by about 30 noted academics and reformers with the purpose of setting up reforms in parallel to the National Reform Council.
The TRI has been dubbed an elite group, while the People’s Council for Reform, set up this week by non-governmental organisations, is seen as a group of grass-roots reformers.
Separately, Pheu Thai caretaker spokesman Prompong Nopparit led other legal advisers to ask NLA president Pornpetch Wichitcholchai in writing to postpone the impeachment of Yingluck, claiming that the former PM had not received copies of the NACC’s complaint.
Lawyer Anek Kamchum said the letter also provided details on the reasons why the NLA should not proceed with the Yingluck impeachment. He said she needed to check the NACC statements so she could fight impeachment, which would deprive her of her political rights. He also asked the president to stop NLA members from giving press comments to sway the unelected assembly’s judgement on the case.
Former Democrat MP Dr Warong Dechgitvigrom said yesterday that the Pheu Thai Party’s arguments to save Yingluck were not valid.
He added that Pheu Thai’s legal team had been creating public confusion over Yingluck, who faces impeachment for failing to stop alleged corruption in the rice-pledging scheme. He said the NLA would take into account the fact that Yingluck was being impeached on alleged political offences and not criminal ones. He said Pheu Thai legal advisers had distorted the issue by making it appear as if the charges pressed against her were related to Article 11 of the State Administration Act, which does not indicate any punishment.
“Lawmakers take recourse to Article 11 to make Yingluck take political responsibility for her failure,” he said.
He also dismissed Pheu Thai’s reason that the NLA cannot cite Article 58 of the Corruption Prevention and Suppression Act 1999 because the act was an organic law of the now-defunct 2007 charter. Warong said the junta had already issued instructions to impose this particular act.
Warong also ruled out Pheu Thai’s reason that the NLA must use the Senate’s 2008 meeting directives if it wants to impeach Yingluck, saying the NLA had to use its own meeting directives, not those of others.