GOVERNMENT SPOKESMAN Maj-General Sansern Kaewkamnerd yesterday slammed the country’s politicians, saying they should ask themselves what they had done for the country.

Sansern was reacting to recent criticism of the draft charter by politicians from the two major parties – the Democrats and Pheu Thai.

Sansern also blamed politicians for causing severe conflicts. “If elected politicians had done better in the past, Thailand would not have come to this point,” he said.

The Pheu Thai Party has issued a statement rejecting the charter draft, and the Democrat Partyhas yet to say whether it will reject the draft but has called it “democracy in retreat”. The Democrats have also announced they will vote against allowing non-elected senators to pick the prime minister, an additional referendum question.

Reacting to Democrat Party leader Abhisit Vejjajiva’s comment that the National Council for Peace and Order’s main achievement was merely keeping peace and order, Sansern said, “When they ran the country, were they able to maintain national security? They are demanding that we resort to normal legal procedures to run the country. This shows they have forgotten what happened to the country in the past from using normal law.”

Abhisit had earlier called on Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha to avoid using Article 44, which gives him absolute power, and instead adopt normal legal procedures.

Sansern said that if the government adopted normal law, but politicians did not change their behaviour, people could not hope for the country’s problems to be solved. “We have to restore the country’s peace and order because elected politicians messed up and caused national division, didn’t they? If they had run the country well, the country would not have come to this point,” he said.

He also said he hoped politicians from the two major parties would keep their word about rejecting the draft constitution and not running in the elections.

Meanwhile, the chief of the National Council for Peace and Order’s public relations centre, Colonel Piyapong Klinpan, played down a comment by Deputy Prime Minister Wissanu Krea-ngam that if the charter draft is rejected, a new charter incorporating the 1997 and 2007 charters and the Borwornsak Uwanno and Meechai Ruchupan charter drafts would be written.

Piyapong said Wissanu was just offering a solution. “How do we know whether the charter draft will be rejected? We will know only on August 7,” he said.

He said all the charter-writing teams, including the team headed by Meechai, had done their best to write the country’s top law. The NCPO’s goal is to steer the country to the path of stability and prosperity and hold a general election next year.

Democrat Party deputy leader Ongart Klampaiboon hit back at Wissanu’s remark that the government wanted to prevent discrimination and confusion and hence did not want to reveal what charter it would adopt if the charter draft is rejected in the referendum.

Ongart said the people who own this country should have the right to choose and to know their future.

Ongart also dismissed Wissanu’s statement that not giving a choice to voters in a referendum was a standard norm practised internationally.

He said a public referendum could be of two types: one gives no choice, and the other gives choices. “The one without a choice is for instance the one on whether East Timor should be under Indonesia. And the one with a choice is for instance the recent one where New Zealanders were asked to choose between two national flags,” he said.

National Reform Steering Assembly deputy president Alongkorn Ponlaboot called on all sectors to avoid hate speech in their campaigns on the charter draft.

“No one should use hate speech to gain political advantage but should present facts and quality information,” he said.

He said he personally found the charter draft to be acceptable but he disapproved with the proposed election system because it cannot solve the problem of election fraud. The proposed system also favours large parties and capitalists. “This is a weakness that may lead to a crisis,” he said.