Deputy Prime Minister Wissanu Krea-ngam yesterday said government ministers would not debate the draft’s clauses individually but would suggest possible revisions in principle.

Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha said he would not propose any changes to the constitutional draft but would tell the CDC about the problems facing the country.

Meanwhile, National Legislative Assembly (NLA) president Pornpetch Wichitcholchai has disagreed with some assessments that the charter draft is weak on human rights.

Key state agencies will question the CDC over whether the proposed mixed-proportional election system, the indirect election of senators and the provisions requiring each party to nominate three PM candidates are internationally accepted and suited to Thailand’s context.

The NLA, the National Reform Steering Assembly (NRSA) and the Cabinet will give their charter draft recommendations to the CDC by February 15.

Pornpetch said Prayut earlier stated that the charter must be internationally accepted and suited to the Thai context.

He said the assembly needed more clarifications even though the CDC had earlier defended a poll that showed citizens favoured the single-ballot election system.

Pornpetch said the proposal to have senators indirectly elected from 20 professional groups had sparked fears the process could lead to collusion or the rigging of elections.

He said he wanted to know what was the purpose of having each party nominate three PM candidates, and why so much power had been given to the Constitutional Court and the Administrative Court given that they were not accountable to the people.

Pornpetch said the NLA and the NRSA would meet tomorrow to discuss their recommendations on the charter and on Friday the NLA would discuss the points it wanted the CDC to change. CDC members would be invited to attend the meeting.

“I am confident the CDC will review and improve the charter draft,” he said.

NRSA secretary Kamnoon Sidhisamarn said the assembly would meet next Monday and Tuesday and its members would forward their comments on the draft to the CDC. The assembly has not yet decided whether to allow each committee to present their own recommendation or make joint NRSA resolutions, Kamnoon said.

NRSA political reform committee member Wanchai Sornsiri said the committee wanted the CDC to change the mixed-proportional election system as it believed the results of polls would not reflect the wishes of voters and the system made it easier to buy votes.

The Constitution Drafting Commission (CDC) statement was made yesterday by spokesman Norachit Sinhaseni after a storm of criticism about the new draft.

Norachit said: “That is an opinion. Many people agree the 1997 charter was good. For the current draft, we have tried to improve [and learn] what happened or what brought us to this point.

“The people want honesty. So, we have tried to make it happen. But it is not under our power [to opt for the 1997 charter if the draft has failed].”

Contentious points include the prime minister’s access to power. Many fear that the process under which a new prime minister is appointed would allow an “outsider” to lead the country. There are also concerns that independent agencies could be given excessive power under the new draft.

The spokesman said yesterday the drafters had, in fact, not discussed those issues in detail.

Norachit affirmed that candidates to be premier must initially be proposed by political parties themselves. After that, they have to be approved by more than half of members of the House of Representatives. So, he said, the prime minister could not be an “outsider”.

In regard to independent agencies, Norachit said they had not been given more power than they already have. The drafters had only stated their roles and authority more clearly, he said.

Commentators, including the other four “rivers” of power, have until February 15 to submit their reactions to the draft after it was released last Friday. In the meantime, the drafters will work to publicise the draft.

Prayut said an election would be held next year, but did not specify which month.

He refused to say if the government’s timetable would be affected because of the estimated eight-month period it will take to write organic laws. He said he did not know how many laws there were, or whether the drafters could expedite their work.

Meanwhile, Deputy PM Wissanu Krea-ngam said he would meet with the Election Commission (EC) and other related agencies to consult on how best to hold the referendum on the charter draft.

The EC’s proposed rules will allow campaigns to take place but do not specify if people who cause a disturbance will face penalties. A new law was needed to address that possibility, he said.

The Army, meanwhile, will instruct military officers to encourage people to vote in the referendum. It will also invite the EC to give a lecture on the new charter to various unit chiefs, so they can better understand the content, a source in the Army’s unit chief meeting said.

The infographics were developed to deliver messages in a simple and attractive manner, compared with the traditional way of publicising the government.

The sets of infographics, containing quotes from Prayut and other ministers and elaborating on the government’s performance, entered the public domain after Sansern distributed them to the Government House media’s Line group.

During Prayut‘s briefing after the Cabinet meeting, he asked the spokesman’s team if it had already sent the infographics to the media and public.

A political pundit said the spokesman’s team might have been caught off-guard because it might not have prepared to release the infographics in their current form.

The infographics came under criticism for their unprofessional standard, with some text tightly packed and somewhat poor, outdated artistic styles.

Prayut also expects all government agencies to do more to raise public awareness, considering that the current propaganda push is still insufficient, Sansern said. Agencies could do more publicity via online channels such as websites, Facebook and Line, he said.

More rounds in the series of infographics will be forthcoming.

The private and public sectors were welcome to contribute to the project.

Prayut did not claim on Friday that the premier would dismiss the PM’s Office minister and the director-general of the Public Relations Department if the infographics were barely viewed. The premier only wished to stimulate officials into focusing on the agenda, he said.

Suriyasai Katasila, director of Rangsit University’s Thailand Reform Institute, warned that society must not fall victim to political sentiment to reject the charter draft, but instead judge it with wisdom and reason so the country can achieve true reform.

He pointed out several aspects of the draft that he said needed to be changed. Firstly, the mixed-proportional system allowing voters to cast only one single vote, he said, distorted the intentions of voters in their selection of MPs.

Human rights, consumer rights, rights of the less privileged and labourers, and public participation are much less provided for than in the 1997 and 2007 charters, Suriyasai said.

Also, the charter has no provisions regarding state investment in state enterprises, which could lead to the privatisation of state enterprises and pave the way for capitalists to take ownership. By contrast, the 2007 charter draft stipulated that the state must maintain a 51-per-cent stake in such enterprises, he said.

The draft also empowers independent agencies but fails to put in place a transparent selection process for their members or specify a mechanism by which the public can check their powers, Suriyasai said.

The mechanisms to decentralise power and bridge social and economic gaps are weaker than those suggested by the previous charter drafting panel led by Borwornsak Uwanno.

The charter also lacks a mechanism to drive reconciliation even though the issue has been established as one of six major objectives, Suriyasai added.

Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha summarises the new charter draft as one that will prevent corrupt people from rising to power or exploiting national resources, Government spokesman Sansern Kaewkamnerd said yesterday.

The prime minister thanked the Constitution Drafting Commission (CDC) led by Meechai Ruchupan for finishing the charter amid pressure from politicians.

Prayut had said politicians attacked the charter draft because they stand to lose their own interests and do not care about the public interest, Sansern said.

Democrat Party deputy leader Ong-art Klampaiboon approved of the charter’s anti-corruption mechanism, provisions that checked the abuse of power by the political majority, and mechanisms to boost the financial discipline of the state.

But he questioned why charter writers recommended only nine years of free education when the Democrat-led government had provided for 12 years. He also urged Meechai to specify that Parliament’s vice president must be a member of the political opposition in the interest checks and balances.

Ong-art questioned the provision that would allow a non-elected prime minister, saying that if the objective were to address the country’s political crisis, the charter should clearly specify when a non-elected premier could take power and under what circumstances.

He also disapproved of the single-vote, single ballot electoral system, saying it would lead to vote-buying and fail to reflect voters’ intentions.

He said the charter draft must be reviewed and it was too soon for the Democrats to decide whether to accept or reject it.

Sukhothai Thammathirat deputy rector Yuthaporn Issarachai said the draft provided strong anti-graft and checks-and-balances mechanisms but contained flaws in the mixed election system, the allowance of a non-elected prime minister and the indirect elections of senators.

He disagreed with the move to reduce the powers of politicians who have a direct link to the people and instead strengthen the independent agencies that are not accountable to the people,

He said the Constitutional Court could be given too much power to rule when a non-elected prime minister could take over government.

He also disapproved of provisions that would make it difficult to amend the charter.

National Reform Steering Assembly’s political reform committee spokesman Wanchai Sornsiri approved of the charter although said it did need some changes.

“The country needs a balance between democracy and political stability. If we have the same mechanism as previous charters, we will go back to the same vicious circle,” he said.

He said politicians who attacked the charter draft did not criticise it fairly.

Pheu Thai caretaker secretary-general Phumtham Wechayachai challenged Meechai to come up with a draft which is “more cruel” than the present one. He was referring to Meechai’s remark that if politicians reject this draft, they would face a more cruel draft in the future.

“We reject the Borwornsak draft and we reject the Meechai draft,” Poomtham said. “If you are bold enough to force the people to accept the more cruel one, go ahead.”

He said they were both confident of their innocence and would remain in the country to fight the separate court cases against them.

“If we escape, it means we are really guilty. As long as we are confident of our innocence, we don’t need to escape,” Somchai said in an exclusive interview with the Nation Group recently.

Somchai, a leader of the Pheu Thai Party, is being tried by the Supreme Court’s Criminal Division for Political Office Holders for alleged abuse of power over a deadly crackdown on a yellow-shirt protesters in 2008. That year, he served briefly as prime minister in a Pheu Thai-led government.

Thaksin fled the country in 2008, shortly before the Supreme Court sentenced him to two years in jail for abuse of power while serving as prime minister. He has lived in exile overseas since then. Certain Pheu Thai figures recently commented that Thaksin’s escape was a “big lesson” and that they did not think Yingluck should repeat the same mistake.

When asked about Pheu Thai’s future in this troubled time for many of its key figures, Somchai said he was confident in the justice system and that the party’s figures would accept any court verdict.

He also said that Pheu Thai did not belong to any family in particular. “Pheu Thai is not an asset of any particular family. All the party members are owners of the party,” he said.

Somchai also asserted that the charter draft completed last week by the Constitution Drafting Commission would result in a series of weak and unstable coalition governments. He said future administrations would also face a lot of restrictions from strict scrutinising mechanisms implemented by powerful independent organisations.