If draft fails, there’ll be an election

The most talked about topic in Thai politics currently is whether Meechai Ruchupan’s charter draft will pass a national referendum scheduled to be held in July. 

Obviously, Meechai’s draft is facing more opposition rather than receiving praise. 

Many opposition sides, ranging from red shirt leaders to anti-coup student activists and civic groups who are concerned about the draft’s failure to clearly address the rights of communities, civic concerns, consumers and the disabled. 

In a move that could deepen the country’s political impasse, some of these critics – including the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship chairman Jatuporn Promphan and Pheu Thai executive Chaturon Chaisang – have clearly declared they will vote down the draft. Some groups have vowed to campaign against the draft charter if Meechai fails to improve his version and meet their demands.

The resistance has led to concerns about political uncertainty because people fear that if the draft fails to pass the referendum, we would still be under a military-installed government – and for how long is the more important question.

Political observers are now divided. 

One group believes the draft will pass the plebiscite as the junta should be able to successfully prevent any move trying to shoot down the charter. Based on in-depth government information from PM’s Office Minister and ex-national intelligence chief Suwaphan Tanyuvardhana, the junta should be able to ensure he knows every anti-charter and anti-coup movement and be able to stop them.

This camp thinks the longer the junta stays in power, the more pressure it will face both from domestic and international communities. Hence, the junta will do everything it can to get the charter passed. Moreover, the denial of the draft would surely imply politically that voters were against the junta, which appointed the charter drafters.

On the contrary, the other camp thinks the draft will not be able to pass if Meechai does not change some contentious points the opposition sides have asked for.

But whether the draft is passed or not should not be the vital question right now, because the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) chief already has in mind a charter for holding the next election. 

A more interesting question is which charter the junta would select to hold the election. 

Late last month, Prayut said there would still be an election by July 2017 in line with the junta government’s “6-4-6-4 roadmap” even if the draft charter is rejected in a referendum.

“Some of the charter would be used [to conduct a general election] if the new draft is rejected,” the premier said. He added that such a charter would contain only one to three articles about how the election would be held, human rights and democracy. 

However, anti-coup groups have demanded the junta use the now torn-up 1997 charter if the Meechai draft is turned down by the referendum.

But it’s unlikely that the junta would accept the demand. By doing so, it would mean the coup in May 2014 was a waste. They staged the coup to curb the Shinawatras’ influence in politics as much as they could. 

Hence, the tentative two options – if the draft is rejected : 

First, the junta writes a new draft, which would take a shorter time than setting up a new drafting committee, considering that the junta may not want to stay longer in power than the road map says due to community pressure.

Second option: revise or adjust previous charters or Meechai’s draft, or even the interim charter 2014. 

That then leads to the most important question. How will the political environment be, post the 2017 election?

If the election is held next year as the junta plans, it’s still likely the Thaksin camp would win again. So, any charter draft to be used to hold the election needs to have measures to prevent them from winning or forming a new government. If the junta fails to do that, it must be prepared with other measures to prevent it.

Political observers suggest we keep our eyes on any provisional clauses allowing the junta to retain power, no matter by what means, to ensure the coup wasn’t a waste and will at least retain its power during the transitional period.