Back to Square One versus 'forced reconciliation'

It’s not only Wissanu’s 6-4-6-4 timeline proposal – six months to write a new charter draft, four months to prepare the referendum, six to write supplementary laws and four to prepare an election – that has sparked wide-ranging debate. The more controversial game plan came with his suggestion of a “clean slate” clause in the charter draft that would require all existing political parties to register afresh, recruit new members and form new executive committees.

The rationale, he said, was to make for fairness among all political groups. The proposal that all political groupings go back to the starting point was, he claimed, aimed at ensuring a genuine new beginning for the country that would wipe away the negative vestiges left by old political parties.

Unsurprisingly, angry responses flew thick and fast from the two major political organisations. Leaders of both the Pheu Thai and Democrat parties wasted no time in slamming the idea as unfair, impractical and downright undemocratic.

Others were quick to point out that it might be a preparatory move by military leaders to form a political party in time for the new election so as to prolong their grip on power.

General Prayut has steered clear of the proposal. None of the military leaders has associated themselves with the idea. Yet most observers believe Wissanu didn’t pull it from thin air. He was probably laying the groundwork for the frame of the new charter. The fact that he has officially nothing to do with rewriting the constitution doesn’t seem to have eroded the credibility of his statements.

Chaturon Chaisaeng, a senior member of Pheu Thai Party who has sparred openly with Wissanu on several issues, made no secret of his suspicion that the whole exercise is a thinly veiled plot to move the date for a new election yet again.

Chaturon has countered Wissanu’s 6-4-6-4 timeline with his own 3-3-3-2 proposal for the countdown to election day.

Premier Prayut declared at the UN General Assembly in New York that the election could be held in 2017, which seems to fit Wissanu’s timeframe. Deeming this too long to wait, Chaturon has come up with a shorter version that envisions an election after 11 months.

Wissanu admitted that the idea of having all political parties start anew is a “strange” concept. Chaturon responded with the accusation that the deputy premier’s timeline was “even stranger”.

Things get stranger still when we consider that a parallel idea of “forced reconciliation”, in the form of a national unity government, is being floated by those who claim knowledge of what the powers-that-be are contemplating.

Again, Prayut and his Cabinet have kept silent on the speculation about coordinated moves to push politicians towards forming a national government after the election so as to avoid a return to the potentially disastrous confrontation between the “red”  and “yellow” camps before the May 22 coup of last year.

In the end though, genuine reconciliation and reform can only happen if the political process to return the country to normalcy is transparent, democratic and inclusive.

After all, politics is too important to be left to politicians alone.