What exactly will the 250 'reformers' be doing?

That means we will never know how the more than 7,000 persons nominated from around the country, plus those names submitted by “non-profit professional groups”, were screened and what selection criteria were applied. But then, even if those conditions had been made public, the final say rested with Gen Prayut alone anyway.

That means he will have to take on the whole burden of making sure that the “reformers” deliver what the public expects of them. And there is no doubt that expectations are indeed very high.

We have yet to be told how the NRC will operate. The nominations were divided into 11 categories, covering everything from energy to education. It was first thought that the NRC members would be working on their respective issues so that they could propose reform measures accordingly. But if the premier’s latest statement is anything to go by, that is no longer the rule of the game. The 250 members will handle all 11 issues in a collective manner. And if that’s the case, one can imagine how cumbersome the whole process will be.

Will the NRC form working groups, recruit advisers and experts and parcel out the search for solutions to the country’s most critical problems that require reform? That isn’t clear either.

Will an expert on the environment be allowed to propose an agenda to reform the local administration system? Can an education expert make suggestions on whether the new Senate should be appointed or elected? Nobody so far in the powerful National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) has offered any clue on that question.

Most importantly, how much power does the NRC possess over the drafting of the new Constitution which, after all, is the most vital piece of work in determining whether real reform can materialise.

So far we only know that the new charter will be drawn up by another group of people, known as the Constitution Drafting Committee, whose members, again, will be picked by the NCPO. They will come from the NCPO, the Cabinet and the NRC. But it has yet to be established whether they will be there as individuals or as representatives of the views of their respective agencies.

All these questions should be clarified from the outset, because the reform process will be judged not only by the output but also the transparency and accountability of the process of selection, discussion and conclusions.

Also, the premier will have to make clear from the beginning whether the draft of the Constitution will need approval from the Cabinet before being considered by the NRC and finally passed by the National Legislative Assembly (NLA).

Then comes the other question, of equal significance: Does the final draft have to be voted upon in a public referendum?

I also have my own questions about whether the NRC, in its wide-ranging discussions on the 11 categories for reform, will have to propose what is to be included in the Constitution, aside from what its representatives may or may not propose in the Constitution Drafting Committee.

It would seem futile for the “reformers” to go through the motions of working out new measures to reform the country without making sure they are somehow referred to in the highest law of the land.

The prime minister has publicly complained that the country’s problems are “daunting” although he clearly indicated that he wasn’t discouraged by the magnitude of the issues. But if he doesn’t lay down clear ground rules from the very outset, he could find that the highly challenging task is made insurmountable by public questioning.