Although Meechai said the government’s “road map” leading to the election was ultimately a matter for Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha, who heads the ruling junta, he believed that any revision of the draft constitution’s organic laws would not take long and the election should not be put off until mid-next year.

Authorities have raised the possibility that the election promised for this year might be delayed, citing complications with relevant legislation and possible revisions to the charter’s organic laws. But Meechai, head of the Constitution Drafting Commission (CDC), said that if their proposed organic laws were shot down by the National Legislative Assembly (NLA), it would only take two weeks at the most to fix them.

“I don’t think the whole draft will be rejected, so we did not lay out the steps needed to be taken after the rejection. However, I believe it will take no longer than 10 or 15 days to |revise the rejected drafts, if they failed to pass the NLA,” Meechai said.

He explained that the drafters would only have to revise any problematic parts pointed out by legislators. Meechai insisted the organic laws would be completed within 240 days as required by the constitution passed in the referendum last August.

He said as soon as the constitution was promulgated, the CDC would immediately submit the organic laws on the Election Commission and political parties to the NLA. The organic laws on the Senate and MPs will be written after the EC and political party laws are finalised and after the EC and politicians are ready, the CDC chairman said. How soon the two laws would be finished depended largely on the EC law and the political parties law, he said. Problems could emerge if the laws were rushed and no one could contest the election if everything was not in place, he said.