Charter should allow direct Senate polls, Rosana says
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THE charter draft should be amended to allow direct Senate elections enabling diverse groups of individuals and professionals to become senators - to link the Senate with the people, a National Reform Committee member proposed yesterday.
Rosana Tositrakul said the move would also prevent vote buying and prevent the same groups of politicians from rising to power.
Direct Senate elections would be held among different groups of professions such as academics, bureaucrats, farmers, labourers, artists and non-government organisations.
The provinces of Thailand would be grouped into six electoral zones, Rosana said, and the election system would be an open list system. Each group would have 33 senators and candidates with the highest scores would win the seats.
Senators would serve a six-year term and their qualifications would be as stipulated in the charter draft. Rosana recommended that Senate qualifications be re-defined to prevent capitalists from gaining power through elections.
Meanwhile, a network of local administration workers led by Sakdipong Thamma-arechawakul asked Constitution Drafting Committee (CDC) chairman Borwornsak Uwanno to add provisions to set up a committee to protect local administrative workers from complaints so that they are not unjustly harassed or punished.
The charter should also have directives to help boost the ethics and morality of central and local politicians, the network said.
