PM leans to referendum, but others dubious

PRIME MINISTER Prayut Chan-o-cha has not ruled out a public referendum on the new constitution, saying the decision would depend on how the situation develops, while he has already embraced public participation in the charter-drafting process.
Prayut said he had recommended that provincial advisers across the country gather public opinion on the new charter by conducting a survey.
“We [must] have questionnaires to see if people agree with certain aspects. Not that I want to suggest any leading questions, but we need to have questions posed, otherwise there will be too many ideas from which it will be hard to draw a conclusion,’’ he said.
Prayut said he had instructed lawmakers that they must ensure they ask the right questions that reflect the issues facing the pubic.
Prayut referred to a meeting he chaired on Tuesday when the cores of five agencies set up under his military regime – the National Council for Peace and Order, the Constitution Drafting Committee (CDC), the National Legislative Assembly (NLA), the National Reform Council (NRC) and the Cabinet – met for the first time to discuss reforms.
Lawmakers were divided over whether the new charter should be subject to a public referendum. Proponents of the referendum said it would give legitimacy to a charter that was being drafted under the supervision of an unelected government, while opponents cited the previous charter, which won a public referendum but not the hearts of some democracy enthusiasts.
Prayut insisted he would not interfere in the affairs of the NLA and NRC and the agencies would be given a free hand. He said he supported former attorney-general Kanit na Nakorn, who wrote in his book that “it is dangerous to use law to solve political problems because of enforcement issues. If the law is too harsh, officials could be charged with dereliction of duty if they did not enforce the law.”
Prayut vowed he would not cling to power or seek vested interests and urged the media not to discredit him with adverse publicity.
“We have just started working and the critics say the country will go back to square one. How can we have the heart to work? Please do not write anything that inflicts public distrust upon us,” he said.
CDC member Jade Donavanik said the Tuesday meeting discussed legislating constitutional organic laws that might take six months to be enacted after the new charter is promulgated.
He said the organic laws most urgently needed were those on political parties and elections. They might not need to be written from scratch, since old laws that consisted of provisions he personally felt were well written could be brushed up.
CDC chairman Borwornsak Uwanno said Prayut gave the CDC its “homework” in regard to the drafting process and the writing of organic laws and national reform. He said he had not decided whether to map out new guidelines in regard to Prayut’s work. But Borwornsak said he would follow up on the work of the subcommittee to give the charter outline on 10 aspects.
Deputy Prime Minister Wissanu Krea-ngam said Prayut instructed the NRC during the meeting on Tuesday to draft laws on any reform aspects it was proposing. He said the government did not want to write any laws the NRC might disapprove of and the Cabinet was already working under time constraints.
Wissanu said the Cabinet could be presented with around 200-300 law proposals. Twenty ministries were in the process of drafting 130 different pieces of legislation for its approval. The Council of State was reviewing 30 pieces of legislation and 70 had been tabled with the NLA for deliberation, some of which had been passed.