If all ministers were required to be ‘honest and ethical’

Isn’t that obvious? Is such a clause necessary at all? If this provision is included in the charter, won’t it signal that ministers in the previous Cabinet were not in fact chosen on that basis?

No, I don’t expect to get an official explanation from CDC members. They have bent over backwards to draw up a new set of rules that will earn the trust of the public. In other words, the new constitution should ideally set the bar higher than in the past so that politicians will regain the confidence of those they are supposed to serve. 

The exact wording of the new provision is of particular interest. In naming the 34 other Cabinet members, the prime minister is required by the new charter to make sure that he picks only people “with an established reputation for honesty and ethics”.

That would be a big departure from tradition. Quite a large number of Thais have written off politics as dirty, corrupt and hopeless, because Cabinet members have often been chosen for reasons quite separate from their merits or ability to get things done in the job.  

Financiers of political parties were paid back with Cabinet seats. Loyalty was considered more important than ability. Money, not meritocracy, was the name of the game. Prime ministers couldn’t have cared less about the principle of putting “the right man in the right job”.

It wasn’t unheard of for Cabinet posts to be handed to shady and suspicious characters, giving the lie to the public oath to “work honestly and selflessly for the benefit of the public”.

Ethics is another controversial issue when it comes to laying down qualifications for those named to senior political positions. Very few of those chosen to run ministries or government agencies take the question of “proper behaviour” seriously. In fact, most of them would be hard-pressed to stipulate what constitutes a “conflict of interests”.

The term “accountability” doesn’t have a clear-cut Thai equivalent. Transparency has never been a serious concern for political appointees. The much-hyped Freedom of Information Act has never been seriously implemented to provide the public with access to state information that is crucial to the monitoring of officials’ performance.

The charter drafters are apparently trying to reverse the trend and put the country on a genuine “road of reform”. Is this too idealistic? Can anybody be sure that with the new general election, we will be embarking on a new era of clean, honest, transparent and effective politics?

Nobody can offer that guarantee, of course. But the same clause also specifies that the public can lodge complaints against any proposed Cabinet members whose backgrounds are less than respectable. That will, for the first time, empower the public to play a role in rejecting rotten elements from gaining access to high office.

The new provision will only be the beginning of a fresh attempt to clean up politics. Together with another clause banning anyone found guilty of corrupt practices from running for public office, this new requirement 

for background checks on Cabinet members should add new impetus to the country’s “political reform” agenda.

But we are still a long way from revamping our political system to the point where it attracts “the best and the brightest” to embark on a new movement to edge out the corrupt elements in politics. 

Yet without genuine reform in the country’s education system, that dawn of a new era is still not around the corner.

Can we afford to wait another generation?