A lost opportunity to assess the draft constitution
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Re: “EC drops idea of referendum note”, News, April 17.
It is rather disappointing that the Election Commission (EC) has dropped the idea of publishing the pros and cons of the points in the draft constitution that the Pheu Thai and Democrat parties have been lambasting.
It’s understandable in that the EC summary might not be credible.
May I ask The Nation instead to summarise the rationales from both sides instead of having politicians clouding our judgement with boring rhetoric?
There may be reasons for the draft authors to be less democratic for the transitional five years – non-elected senators with clout or non-elected premiers, as allowed in some countries.
So far the issues have been one-sided, with an underlying dislike of anything that is different from previous practices since 1932.
And, for 84 years, we have been living in a box of what we are used to and periodically facing political instability.
We should instead be asking why it can’t be different and readjust our constitution selflessly, for the common good.
Songdej Praditsmanont
