He said an amendment was needed to prevent an interpretation that ‘majority’ stands for majority of eligible voters, because if that was the case, it would require a greater number of voters in the referendum to determine whether the people had accepted the charter draft.

He also declined to outline the options should the charter draft be rejected in the referendum, saying this could have an effect on voting in the referendum. He said Deputy Prime Minister Wissanu Krea-ngam had not made the decision, as it was the prerogative of the Cabinet and National Council for Peace and Order.

Deputy Prime Minister Prawit Wongsuwan said he believed the first charter draft would be an interim charter used for four to five years, as it would be a transitional one. The government and NCPO want the new government to continue and achieve reforms according to 20-year national strategies.

“Then we can have a permanent constitution. This is my personal opinion, not that of the Cabinet,” he said.

Prawit ruled out the possibility of the government allowing political parties to hold gatherings and debate the charter draft.

“If parties hold a meeting in one place, there will not be a problem but if they do it across the country to the grassroots, who can monitor them? Where is the force to be deployed? With this kind of situation, they have to accept the circumstances. If they have any questions, let them raise it with Meechai Ruchupan, the CDC chairman,” he said.

Prawit denied that the junta had conducted polls to gauge the response to the charter draft in a referendum.

“The military has not decided whether the charter should pass in a referendum or not.

“I personally want it to be accepted because it meets international standards,” he said.

CDC member Chartchai na Chiangmai said he would ask the commission to address the concerns of village heads and local leaders about the possibility that the institutions – kamnan and villages heads – would be dissolved because the charter draft is not clear about local administration.

However, he defended the draft, saying local administration was dealt with in Article 72 in the chapter “The Directive Principles of State Policy”, which covers central, regional and local administration, which includes kamnan and village heads.

The National Reform Steering Assembly also wanted further clarity from the CDC on each administration.In regard to local leaders’ concerns, Prawit urged kamnans and village heads to take it easy, saying the draft is not final.

To keep up with the junta’s timeline to achieve democracy, Cabinet yesterday suggested to the Constitution Drafting Commission (CDC) that it may not need to complete drafting all organic laws prior to election, Deputy Prime Minister Wissanu Krea-ngam said yesterday.

Submitting proposals to the CDC on Monday, the Cabinet suggested that the CDC could choose to finish drafting only those essential to the election before the event is held, Wissanu said. Other organic laws could be written while the election process is being held, he said.

Wissanu is also working with the Election Commission (EC) on designing a mechanism to provide knowledge on the draft to people, he said, in place of an earlier idea of distributing the draft to 80 per cent of households with eligible voters nationwide. It also resolved that the EC will manage the referendum campaign, he said.

The tentative date for the referendum was still July 31, he said, or seven days later or earlier than that.

The Council of State would take a day or two to amend the 2014 Interim Charter, he said, to facilitate the referendum process.