Local leaders from 77 provinces with 4 million members have called for changes in the draft. The group said their decision over whether to accept or reject the charter draft depends very much on the revision of the draft on this one point.

They have raised concern that the institutions of kamnan and village head may be adversely affected since there was no provision mentioning local and regional administrations.

Yongyot Kaewkiew, president of the Association of Kamnans and Village Heads of Thailand, also filed a petition with Constitution Drafting Commission spokesman Amorn Wanitwiwat to clearly mention the local, regional and central administration in the draft.

He said the group found that the charter draft did not have provisions on regional and central administration. “We are worried that if the charter draft is not clear, there might be interpretation, not that we are afraid kamnans and village heads would be disbanded. We will follow up on our request. If our wish is not considered, our group will reconsider whether to accept the charter draft in the referendum,” he said.

Chusak Ayupong, president of Phuket Kamnan and Village Head Association, led 100 local leaders to file the petition with the PM to revise Article 49 of the charter draft.

His group wanted the draft to say “the state must clearly declare the scope of authority of the local, regional and central administrations”. The state must provide funds for provincial development.

In Chiang Mai, 1,000 local leaders from 25 districts of Chiang Mai met Chiang Mai Governor Pawin Chamniprasat to seek revision of the charter draft over policies on the country’s administration.

In Kanchanaburi, 200 local leaders gathered in a symbolic opposition against Article 49 and 246 of the charter draft in Muang district.

Pa-ern Kaenchan, kamnan of Tambon Don Salaeb from Kanchanaburi, said the existence of regional administration is key to the country’s stability and security.

Interior Minister General Anupong Paochinda said local leaders have the right to seek revision of the charter draft but he warned their gathering to push for their demand may be deemed illegal. “I have been informed that they have dispersed,” he said.

He said he had assigned Interior Ministry permanent secretary Krissada Bunrat to explain to the local leaders about their gathering.

“They are state officials so they must be careful. Society may be fed up with such gatherings as it may cause disruption. It affects investment and tourism. They should raise this on the stages that we provide,” he said.

 

Construction of the Bt12-billion complex started in 2013 at Bangkok’s Dusit district on the banks of the Chao Phraya |River is about 18 per cent |complete but is well behind schedule. Completion of |construction has been |deferred to December 15 |this year.

Pornpetch said there was no corruption in the construction but there were delays in the hand over of land.

“The main issue is demolition of old buildings and |moving soil out of the site. Parliament does not have authority to dismantle |these buildings, as we need approval from the Treasury Department,” he said.

He questioned how authorities responsible for signing the contract for construction had endorsed the contract when old existing buildings on the site had not been demolished or relocated.

He expressed concern that |if the construction were not completed as indicated in |the contract, the foundation |of the building would become rusty and become a “ruin”. |”This could lead to court cases to find who is responsible for the damage,” he said. Pornpetch was doubtful if the builder would be able to |complete the construction within December when many buildings have to be demolished.

 

“We continue to encourage a return to civilian rule in Thailand,” Obama said at a press conference at the end of the summit. A video clip of his remark is available on the State Department’s Facebook page.

Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha who staged a military coup to topple the elected government of Yingluck Shinawatra in May 2014 was in the US for the summit since early this week.

General Prayut had an opportunity to have a brief conversation with Obama during the summit but details of the encounter have not yet been released. He left the meeting place at Sunnylands Centre in California for Thailand immediately after the end of the meeting.

The issue of human rights and democracy was not the main focus of the summit and Washington did not single out any country during the two-day meeting or in the joint statement issued after the summit.

“I made it clear that the US will continue to stand with those across Southeast Asia who are working to advance the rule of law, good governance, accountable institutions and the universal human rights of all the people,” he said at the press conference.

“Across the region we continue to stand with citizens and civil society to continue defending their freedom of speech and assembly and of the press. No one including those who are in political positions should be ever detained or in prison only for speaking their mind,” he said.

Regarding Myanmar whose outgoing President Thein Sein cancelled his attendance at the last minute, Obama said “We continue to engage with the people of Myanmar as the new president is selected, and there is work to implement a ceasefire agreement for national reconciliation.”

Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi‘s National League for Democracy won a landslide victory in the November election last year. She is banned by the military-sponsored constitution from taking the administration’s top job as her children hold foreign nationality. A power trade-off is ongoing and Myanmar’s parliament will begin the presidency selection process in the middle of March.

The rare standalone summit in the US was held to reaffirm Obama’s policy of rebalancing to Asia and the US-Asean strategic partnership. “I believe this summit has put the US-Asean partnership on a new trajectory that will carry us to even greater heights in the decades ahead. America’s foreign policy rebalance to the Asia-Pacific, including Southeast Asia, will continue to be a foreign priority of my presidency,” said Obama, who leaves office at the end of his second term next year.

Obama has made seven separate visits to the Asean region. He attended three out of four US-Asean summits when the regional grouping hosted the summit in the region. The US president will visit Vietnam in May on his way to a Group of Seven meeting in Japan and will visit Laos when Vientiane hosts the East Asia Summit in September. It will be his first visit to Vietnam and he will be the first US president to visit Laos.

Of the 10 Asean leaders who travelled to the US for the summit, leaders of “authoritarian nations”, notably Thailand and Cambodia, were fiercely criticised by the American media and their own citizens who lived in exile in the US, for their tough rule and poor human rights practices. The Los Angeles Times singled out Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun Sen, Thai Prime Minister Prayut Cha-o-cha, Malaysia’s Prime Minister Najib Razak, Brunei’s Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah, Laos President Choummaly Saysone, Myanmar President Thein Sein and Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung in its article headlined “A crowd of dictators is coming to Southern California”.

Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, Hun Sen, Najib Razak and Philippine President Benigno Aquino extensively updated their countrymen about their activities in the US via social media.

Lee’s Facebook, in particular was packed with information about his week-long trip to the US, which also took him to San Francisco where he met Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Apple’s Tim Cook besides having lunch with the CEOs of PayPal (Dan Schulman), Qualcomm (Steve Mollenkopf) and Applied Materials (Gary Dickerson), all of whom have a major presence in Singapore.

“We talked about new technologies and global trends, and Singapore’s Smart Nation ideas. Elon Musk gave me a brief but exhilarating ride in the Tesla Model S P90D, and I also got a spin in Google’s self-driving car,” Lee posted on his Facebook.Gist of Sunnylands Declaration

• The importance of shared prosperity, sustainable, inclusive economic growth and development

• Ensure opportunities for all of peoples, through strengthening democracy, enhancing good governance and adherence to the rule of law, promoting and protecting human rights and fundamental freedoms

• Respect and support for ASEAN Centrality

• Shared commitment to peaceful resolution of disputes

• Shared commitment to maintain peace, security and stability in the region, ensuring maritime security and safety, including the rights of freedom of navigation and overflights and other lawful uses of the seas

• Shared commitment to addressing climate change and developing a climate-resilient, environmentally sustainable Asean

• Shared commitment to promote security and stability in cyberspace consistent with norms of responsible state behaviour

• Support for the advancement of the Asean community

• Shared commitment to strengthen people-to-people connectivity through programs that engage Asean and American citizens

• Shared commitment to promote a global partnership for sustainable development

 

They view the strategy plan and the committee overseeing it, as per the draft bill passed by the National Steering Reform Assembly (NSRA) on Tuesday, as being problematic both technically and politically.

One of the most controversial issues, they said, was having the incumbent prime minister as well as chiefs of the NSRA and the National Legislative Assembly (NLA) as members of the first strategy committee.

Meanwhile, despite agreeing that a national strategy plan was essential, Democrat Party leader and former PM Abhisit Vejjajiva said those involved should be thorough because problems might follow as the composition and authority of the 25-member committee may not be in line with the rapidly changing world.

“Issues could arise because the committee is not approved by the people, when it is they who are authorised with directing the future of elected governments in the next 20 years,” he said. Pointing out that since issues with the new constitution have not been sorted out yet, this draft bill could not be considered to be in line with it, he said. The former PM also said the plan should be clear on how goals can be set and the timeframe. As for details on how the plan should be carried out, it should be left to each government to decide.

Sirote Klampaiboon, an independent scholar, said that if this idea were to be implemented, it would make the next elected government meaningless.

“They [the future governments] would not be able to put forward meaningful policies of their own if they have to follow this strategy,” he said, adding the committee was somewhat like the Communist Party’s Politbureau.

“More importantly, the whole idea about the plan is very worrisome because it is prescribed by a minority when it has to serve a diverse majority of people,” the scholar added.

He explained that public policies should reflect the demand of people in general, instead of getting military men and civil servants who have a narrow viewpoint to do the job. Also, he said, the plan would not really work. “This is not to mention how the future governments would be legally bound to follow the scheme or they would face penalties and be removed from office,” he said, adding that it was not fair.

Attasit Pankaew, Thammasat University’s political scientist, said the plan and the committee had a legitimacy problem. They could not legitimately bind future governments for 20 years to follow their strategy because it has yet to be approved by the public. Future governments who don’t wish to follow the plan could always say, it’s not the “people’s voice” so they do not have to obey it, Attasit said.

Meanwhile, some other political critics shared a more optimistic perspective, saying having a national strategy is a good idea and the committee overseeing it could not be as dreadful as the National Strategic Reform and Reconciliation Committee (NSRRC) or the “crisis” panel of the previous charter draft.

Thawilwadee Bureekul, a spokesman for the NRSA’s committee on the national administration, which is responsible for the strategy bill, said the first strategy committee which included three of the five rivers appointed by the junta would only last when the next government takes office.

After that, the baton would be passed on to the next government and the heads of the upper and lower houses.

Political analyst Suriyasai Katasila also said he did not think the strategy committee was as powerful as the NSRRC, though for the sake of clarity and sincerity, those responsible for the bill should stipulate that the committee is not a means for the junta to confer power.

The concern was raised yesterday in TJA’s monthly executive board meeting after the government spokesperson’s team came up with new guidelines for media questions at Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha’s regular weekly press briefing. The rules stated that journalists could now only ask a maximum of four questions each time. They must also use the microphone to announce who they are and the organisations they represent.

“The board thinks limiting it to a maximum of four questions to be asked is too few. It could be considered as limiting the media’s rights and freedoms in questioning the government’s administration”, said the TJA’s vice president for press freedom and media reform and its spokesman Manop Thip-Osod.

The instructions were puzzling as the journalists could easily come up with more than four questions that the government team set as a limit, he said.

However, the board was not worried about the new guidelines asking journalists to introduce themselves before interviews, as this was an international practice, he said.

He added the board predicted the rules would not last long because it’s not practical.

The TJA board also disagreed with the idea that the journalists should have to submit questions in advance.

“It is the PM’s right to decide if he would answer a particular enquiry or not,” he said.

Wissanu also said the Cabinet’s recommendations on the charter draft did not include this matter, but said it would be acceptable if a government failed to implement the strategy it could be dismissed by a court.

Wissanu said there was a bright side to the development, reasoning that a government in the future would have as many as four years to work on the strategy considering its first phase.

“It doesn’t have to finish all plans within their first or second years,” Wissanu said “Politicians will somehow find ways to accomplish these.”

The National Reform Steering Assembly’s bureaucratic administration committee yesterday deliberated on its study on development of the 20-year national strategy as well as a necessary draft bill to put it in effect.

It is seen as paving the way for creation of a new body which may supersede an elected government in the future again after the previous body of the National Strategic Reform and Reconciliation Committee was strongly opposed and dropped along with the previous charter draft.

Another deputy Prime Minister, Prawit Wongsuwan helped his colleague underline importance of having a long-term strategy in place to help carry out long term reform plans at yesterday’s press briefing, but stopped short of saying more on the matter.

Wissanu said the Cabinet proposed for a reform chapter to be included in the charter draft to steer reforms, and they should be in line with the 20-year national strategy.

The long-term strategy is expected to be actively driven, Wissanu said, in order to help integrate five-year National Economic and Social Development plans.Wissanu said the Cabinet did remind the CDC of the political chaos prior to May 22, 2014, he said, when the latest coup took place. The CDC should come up with solutions to that kind of situation, he said.

Its recommendations should have weight when coming to the CDC’s consideration, he viewed, as they merged proposals from all ministries.

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.