EC urges the NCPO to lift its ban on rallies
Play
'Stages to allow people to voice opinion on draft charter'
ELECTION COMMISSION (EC) chairman Supachai Somcharoen said yesterday he would ask the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) to relax restrictions, especially its ban on political rallies.
He said the EC would also set up stages for people who support and oppose the draft charter to debate and express their opinions.
He also said that he had assured the National Legislative Assembly (NLA) that the printing house given the job of printing copies of the draft charter would be selected through a bidding process, not through the recommendation of any EC members.
Sacked EC secretary-general Puchong Nutrawong had earlier called for an investigation into the printing process for the sake of transparency. The EC asked its legal office to consider filing a defamation complaint against Puchong in response to his allegations of a conflict of interest regarding the plan to print the previous draft charter, which was subsequently discarded.
Puchong was dismissed earlier this month for allegedly failing his performance evaluation and frequently delaying the completion of projects.
Supachai said the EC expected the new charter’s first draft to be delivered no later than January 29. He added that he had told the NLA that the EC had prepared regulations on a public referendum and would resort to a bidding process to select a printing house.
He also insisted there would be no order from the government or the National Council for Peace and Order to fix the result of the referendum.
“There are 45 million people in the country, nobody can order them how to vote,” he said. The EC would also summarise key points of the draft charter and send them to the EC’s provincial branches so the content can be shared with the public.
Meanwhile, the NLA will today vote on proposals from its different committees over certain points in the draft charter.
The points to be voted upon include fixing the number of constituency MPs at 350 and party-list MPs at 150. Five NLA committees back these points, namely the panels on administration, energy, mass media, religion and on transport.
The committee on politics, however, has proposed that the number of constituency MPs be fixed at 300 and party-list MPs at 200.
Every NLA committee agrees with the proposal of having all senators be indirectly elected as well as allowing a non-elected premier. The panels on political and foreign policy want MPs to vote for the PM, while the administration and energy committees want the PM to be chosen through votes in Parliament.
Eight NLA committees agreed there should be a special body to resolve national crisis, an idea the committees on agriculture and religion disagree with.
National Reform Steering Assembly whip Kamnoon Sidhisamarn said Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha has approved five reform proposals offered by the assembly, which are derived from the now-defunct National Reform Council’s reform agenda.
He said Prayut had told the assembly to seek cooperation from other agencies to amend the following draft bills: for the establishment of a corruption court, the bill on conflict of interests, the bill to retrieve state assets from those found guilty of corruption, the bill on agricultural reform and the bill on water management during times of crisis.
