CDC 'not aiming to weaken parties'

Sujit Boonbongkarn, chairman of the Constitution Drafting Committee’s subcommittee on political leaders and institutions, yesterday denied claims that charter drafters’ key agenda was to weaken political parties.
He claimed bylaws would contain provisions on the development of parties and the political system, giving way to good politicians and a strong citizens’ sector.
Sujit said charter drafters had introduced the mixed-member proportional system in order to prevent “parliamentary dictatorship” by stopping a majority group from becoming too powerful.

Scepticism questioned
Several representatives from political parties, including Pheu Thai and Chart Thai Pattana, expressed concerns at a seminar on Monday and questioned charter drafters’ scepticism of politics and politicians and wondered if that was why they were designing provisions to weaken them.
Another CDC member, Nakarin Mektrairat, said charter drafters had collected political parties’ opinions on their proposals and would consider them when drafting articles related to political system, politicians and political parties next week in Pattaya.
Nakarin said the CDC had
collected the opinions of all political parties present at the seminar and each opinion would be considered during the deliberation process.

‘All proposals will be considered’
He pointed to the example where CDC had taken into account the Democrat Party’s recommendations on the appointment of Speakers and deputy Speakers for the House of Representatives as well as the impeachment process. The Democrats had argued that the proposal to have both the House of Representatives and the Senate vote for impeachment could pose problems, as it would be difficult for a politician to be impeached, as they almost always have support of the majority in the lower house anyway.
CDC spokesman General Lertrat Ratanavanich said charter drafters had proposed that political parties that have elected MPs be stopped from merging after elections. He said this proposal came from the National Reform Council’s panel on political reform, led by Sombat Thamrongthan-yawong. The CDC spokesman said the charter drafters had designed a six-region constituency for party-list MPs instead of the original proposal of eight because having fewer regions would mean that voters have a chance to choose someone they know about.