Referendum sour grapes are no recipe for hope

Since the culprits have not yet been caught, it seems dubious for the authorities to rule out terrorism or sabotage from the far South. However, in the same light, the warning fired at the junta not to “overlook the fact that many millions of people voted against it [the charter draft] or didn’t bother to even to cast a ballot” seems like a case of sour grapes. The result – 16.8 million “yes” votes against 10.6 million “no” votes – represents a hefty difference.

In your August 9 report headlined “Vote win is ‘no mandate’”, you quoted Satitorn Tananitichote of King Prajadhipok’s Institute cautioning that, though 15.5 million voted “yes”, 25 million voters absented themselves from the ballot. She implicated that the absentees were all opposed to the charter. She seemed disappointed with the result.

Indeed, the “yes” vote of 33.6 per cent (16.8 million) looks less than impressive if you presume that all the absentees would have voted “no”. But I deem that percentage respectable given that the winning vote in the 2007 charter referendum was also 33 per cent. Meanwhile the recent British referendum on EU membership was won by a vote of 37 per cent. Yet the jubilation among Brexit campaigners isn’t echoed by their counterparts in Thailand, where political observers are unhappy and dubious at the result. Meanwhile those hoping for a narrow majority of “yes” votes were surprised with the scale of the victory, but unfortunately their jubilation appears short-lived. 

I pray that we can now bury the past and start afresh with this charter, hoping that it will be sustainable. I look forward to the day I can wear a red shirt without being seen as a political sympathiser.

Songdej Praditsmanont