Reform Council: Nobody is promising utopia in one year

“The public’s expectations are very high – so high that they may be unrealistic. Some people may be dreaming that one year from now, Thailand will become a utopia. That’s not right. That’s impossible,” Thianchay said in a newspaper interview earlier this week.
It’s not only the brief timeframe that has raised questions about whether the mission can be accomplished. It’s the complicated issues and messy horse-trading that might ensue that have clouded the possible conclusion of the assignment given to the panel.
The NRC has been given extraordinary power. For one thing, as is provided for in the interim constitution, it has the final say on whether the charter draft will be accepted or not. In addition, it has a quota of 20 out of 36 seats on the Constitution Drafting Committee. And that’s where the first major element of discord among its members arose.
Someone suggested that the NRC should demonstrate its intention of respecting diversity of political opinion by selecting five “outsiders” from opposing political camps to join 15 others picked from the ranks of NRC members themselves.
That proposal met with immediate opposition from the so-called “NRC Whips Committee”, which met to debate the issue and was split 11-8 over the controversial idea.
Those who voted in favour argued that the NRC would be taken to task for not adopting an “exclusive” policy if it didn’t invite “professionals” in the political arena to join in the drawing up of the new constitution. After all, the new set of ground rules would apply to all those in the political arena. It’s only fair that those with strong views in the political field should be given a chance to join the process.
Those against countered that it’s precisely because the new charter will be applied to politicians that the process of writing it should be free from the influence of those with vested interests.
And even if the final decision of the NRC was to draw in politicians to be part of the process, the bigger question would be: Whom to invite? And how do you decide on who offers the invitations?
And this is only the first of many more delicate issues the national reform panel must settle. Several sensitive questions remain to be answered before the NRC can begin to tackle the country’s major issues:
l If the NRC wants a more “representative” composition, how does it go about involving the 7,000 or so candidates who failed in their bids to join the 250-member panel? Premier Prayut Chan-o-cha says he would like those who didn’t get picked to be able to contribute to the reform process. But nobody has come up with any clear idea of how to reach that goal, apart from a general proposal to set up “subcommittees” all over the country.
l How does the NRC cope with the 11 major issues proposed for reform? Do all 250 members work on the issues all at once or are they split up into 11 groups to handle the questions separately?
l Who has the final say in deciding which proposed reform measures are accepted and which discarded?
l Once the reform proposals are drawn up by the NRC, how does the public get a say on those recommendations? Is a referendum in some form possible under the current scheme of things?
I agree that we Thais shouldn’t place unreasonably high expectations on the reform process. And we are dreaming wild dreams if we think Thailand will become a utopia within a year.
But the NRC will have to tell us where we will be in one year’s time and, if there is no utopia in sight, give some assurance that we won’t be thrown into a hell of confusion.