Government likely to use special powers to amend political party law: Wissanu

However, Wissanu said the amendment would not affect the upcoming election, saying it was “a separate issue”.
Wissanu, the government’s legal expert, said the law had to be amended to extend the period of time for political parties to prepare ahead of the election.
The charter’s provisional chapter gives parties 90 days to update their membership, the deadline for which ends early next month, and politicians have cried foul that they might miss the deadline, while new parties said they would be at a disadvantage.
Wissanu said the extension of the 90-day period could be done with the permission of the Election Commission (EC) but it could still pose “disadvantages” to some parties so it was “only fair” to use Article 44 to amend the law.
He also dismissed using the National Legislative Assembly (NLA) to change the law, saying it would take too long because the charter required public hearings under Article 77 as well as feedback from the EC. 
Wissanu said the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) had been considering the issue and would be the body that made the decision. 
Wissanu admitted that an extension of the 90-day deadline would be meaningless if the political ban was not lifted.
Calls for a legal amendment have grown since last week, when political heavyweights including the former leader of the People’s Democratic Reform Committee, Suthep Thausuban, proposed amending the law in order to ensure “fair treatment” of both old and new parties. Suthep did not, however, detail what specific points he considered unfair.
Former reformer Paiboon Nititawan suggested amending the point about the collection of membership fees from new parties, which he said he saw as unfair. 
Those two figures are expected to meet the NLA this week to express their views on the amendment. Their actions, however, are viewed by political observers as attempts to delay the election.
Democrat Party leader Abhisit Vejjajiva, meanwhile, questioned the motives behind moves to amend the law, saying both proposals came from people who once supported the junta-sponsored bill, and he wanted to know why they had changed their minds. He also said he thought their proposals were unclear.
Abhisit said the solution to the problem was to lift the junta’s political ban to allow parties to pursue political activities as they saw fit. “The question is why do you want to amend the law. If it’s to delay the election, there is no need to amend the law at all. Just be straight about why you cannot do what you have promised, what the reasons are. You need to make this clear, or otherwise we will have a new political problem,” he said.