PRIME Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha yesterday said the country’s future could be determined by individual citizens and they should avoid repeating their past mistakes.

“The power is in the people’s hands. If you make wrong choices, things will continue to be wrong. If you choose good people, that is good for the country’s future. The good policies started by my government will be carried on,” Prayut said.

“People can choose if they want the country to progress and has a bright outlook. The future will depend on what people choose,” he added.

The PM also noted his government had set a 20-year national strategic plan for the country, but admitted that changes to the plan could be made by future administrations.

He spoke while giving a special lecture entitled “Phuket as Smart City and Start-up Paradise”.

The event was held as part of the Start-up Thailand and Digital Thailand 2016 fair at Duangjitt Resort and Spa in Phuket.

The prime minister said that his government was taking care of people throughout the country, and not just particular areas.

“But we need to improve the strength by regions and groups of provinces and build connections between them,” he told the audience. “The government is like the father of the house and he has the duty to make the children of the house happy,” he added.

General Prayut, who heads the National Council for Peace |and Order, also presided over the opening of the new international |terminal at Phuket Airport.

Prayut congratulated the airport’s management for the expansion, which will help extend its capacity to cope with 12.5 million passengers a year, up from 6.5 million at present.

The PM also stressed the importance of upgrading the airport’s public utilities and safety. He said mafia figures must be removed from the airport’s operations, as part of the government’s policy of suppressing influential figures.

After the ceremony, he went on a brief tour of the new international terminal, chatting with foreign tourists. He asked them to come back to visit Thailand again.

Prayut was joined in the opening ceremony by a number of his Cabinet members, including Deputy Prime Minister Narong Pipatanasai, Deputy Prime Minister Somkid Jatusripitak, Interior Minister Anupong Paochinda, and Agriculture and Cooperatives Minister Chatchai Sarikalya.

The four-storey international terminal at Phuket airport has a total space of 73,103 square metres, including the arrival and departure halls.

The new terminal will handle |international passengers only. The old terminal will be used for domestic flights. Previously, there was only one terminal handling both domestic and international flights.

Yesterday morning, the PM’s flight from Bangkok’s military airport at Don Mueang was delayed for about half an hour. A plane originally designated for the trip had to be replaced after its air-conditioning system broke down, according to a source.

The source dismissed an earlier report that the original aircraft had a problem with its control system.

In his speech during the start-up event, General Prayut said Thailand must tell the world community that Phuket was ready to become a “smart city” and serve as a hub for start-up businesses in Southeast Asia.

He said the island province was part of the government’s pilot project to develop digital infrastructure and the digital industry. “We will see that Phuket become a complete smart city by 2020,” he said.

The media bodies include the Thai Journalists Association (TJA), the Thai Broadcast Journalists Association (TBJA), the National Press Council of Thailand (NPCT), the News Broadcasting Council of Thailand (NBCT), the Society for Online News Providers and the Thailand Cable TV Association.

The move was led by Thepchai Yong, president of TBJA, who submitted a letter of opposition to the draft bill to the media reform panel’s chairman ACM Kanit Suwannate.

Thepchai said the media organisations agreed with a mechanism to boost the codes of conduct applicable to the media, but were concerned about the proposed National Media Profession Council, which would open the door to political intervention in media coverage.

Kanit said he would take the concerns to his committee and would consider the bill carefully, adding that he promised not to put any “bad issues” in the bill.

However, he said the draft bill was still under consideration by a sub-panel tasked with print media reform.

He said the situation at that time was so volatile that royal emblem stamps for royal endorsement had to be moved out of Government House for safety reasons.

“It was the first time in history that His Majesty the King’s royal emblem stamp needed to be stored elsewhere outside the Government House,” Wissanu recalled the country’s pre-coup atmosphere.

He described as a “near-failed state” the situation before the coup, when governmental offices were forced to be closed due to occupation by protesters.

Wissanu was speaking during the government’s report on its performance over the past two years. He claimed the government could issue more laws than any of its recent predecessors.

“There were emergency decree and martial law but no one cared,” he said, adding that there was severe division and all mechanisms were not functioning.

“Eventually there was a coup and the situations was settled down. We could go fetch the stamps three days after the coup,” he said.

At the same event, Wissanu said the junta has advanced the country by passing important laws, addressing urgent grievances and restoring national peace and the “sacredness” of the legal system.

He said four previous governments from 2008 to 2014 passed only 120 bills, but the NCPO-backed government had passed 187 bills. Wissanu said the government also invoked Article 44 of the interim charter to issue 104 orders to tackle minor problems. “These laws are mechanisms we rely on in steering the country on a solid path. In terms of legislation, we have not only quantity but quality control,” he said.

Another 100 pieces of charter-related legislation including the all- important Conflict of Interests bill will be passed next year, he said. “This bill is formidable because it targets not only ministers but government officials who sponsor bills that are only in their interests, not those of the country,” he said.

ANALYSTS YESTERDAY slammed the post-coup junta-backed government over its two-year performance report card, giving it a “fail” grade as it did not address some key issues and lacked concrete achievements and vision.

The analysts were critical of the content and presentation of yesterday’s report by Prime MinisterPrayut Chan-o-cha and six deputy premiers, that lasted about five hours at Government House.

Sirote Klampaiboon, an independent political science scholar, said the government had exploited the press conference to make political points by blaming previous civilian governments for “causing damage to the country” and projecting itself as being heroic for staging a coup to end the country’s political turmoil.

“They sounded like politicians trying to gain support from the people rather than leaders who had some achievements to show or a vision to share,” the scholar said.

Sirote said Prayut had made great efforts to point out that it had become necessary for the junta to take control of the country because previous governments had caused many problems such as economic disparity and poverty, the law and order situation and corruption.

The scholar argued that the pre-coup situation had not been that bad, as there had been signs of improvement in terms of the economy, the quality of life of the people, and public administration.

“The previous governments did not only cause damage to the country. They also contributed to the country to some extent. Over the last 10 years, wages and the unemployment rate have improved. However, in recent years, the country’s unemployment situation has worsened,” he said.

Sirote said the junta should have focused on concrete achievements such as the unemployment figure and wages as measures of its success, as those would have been better indicators of how it had improved the country.

He also criticised Prayut‘s body language during the presentation, saying the PM rarely made eye contact with the audience. “It seemed as if he was not confident and did not understand what he was saying. He always looked at his script.”

Attasit Pankaew, a political scientist at Thammasat University, said the junta mostly presented a “macro” picture with figures and indices from international organisations, which are difficult to understand for the common man. He said the junta should have focused more on data about wages, agricultural products, and import-export figures.

However, Attasit gave the thumbs up to the quality of the presentation materials. He said infographics and trendy icons were used and they were more up to date than the material used when they made public their first performance report last year.

Sunai Phasuk, a researcher at Human Rights Watch in Thailand, said he was disappointed with yesterday’s session. He said the junta had failed in all areas.

In terms of content, he said, the government had failed to address how it has and would restore democratic rule and respect and the people’s political rights, which have deteriorated since the coup.

He also suggested that the government issue a written report to show how it would restore democracy to meet international standards.

Sunai said the session was poorly managed, lasting some five hours, three hours longer than originally scheduled. As a result, the question-and-answer session had to be dropped, he added.

“The Q&A session is an opportunity for Thai and foreign media to raise the concerns of the public,” he said.

Meanwhile, Thanavath Phonvichai, director of the University of the Thai Chamber of Commerce’s (UTCC) Economic and Business Forecasting Centre, gave the government’s economic team 8 out of 10 for its attempts to stimulate economic growth amidst the sluggish global situation.

Pheu Thai Party politician Nattawut Saikua said yesterday that the immediate task for the government was to tackle the economic problems, which he said were still serious.

He added that the government had no concrete accomplishments in that area.

He also disputed the government’s claim of restoring peace in the country. Nattawut, a leader of the red shirts’ United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship, said the government was simply suppressing dissidence.

Media organisations have voiced their opposition to the legislation, while agreeing in principle that current regulations should be made more effective given recent violations of privacy and decency in reporting, including the six-hour live broadcast of an incident that ended in a lecturer fatally shooting himself.

The biggest criticism of the draft bill is that it would open the way to interference in the media by “outside influences”.

“We agree in principle that there should be more effective media ethics-regulation mechanisms in place, but we do not agree with the idea to establish them as legally binding, especially the idea to set up a lawful national media professional council to regulate the media,” Thai Broadcast Journalists Association president Thepchai Yong, also chairman of the Working Group for Media Reform, said in a statement released by media organisations on Monday.

“This could leave a loophole for political and business entities to interfere with the media’s work, which ultimately would affect the people’s right to information.”

The draft bill would establish a new media professional council to oversee journalistic standards and practice via media organisations nationwide. The media organisations would be registered, with penalties for violations by media outlets under them including revocation of their professional certification.

The council would be partially financed by the government, which is a cause for further concern over potential outside interference from the state.

Media organisations have good reason to oppose a bill that would see them lose ground in their hard-fought battle for independence from state control and other outside influence.

However, a stalemate followed by inaction is no answer, since all sides have agreed that current media regulation is inadequate and requires tightening – though perhaps not full-blown reform.

The question is, how.

Years of debate has focused on concerns that too-tight regulation would jeopardise the spirit of press freedom, which is fundamental to people’s rights to information and sound decision making, while too-loose regulation leaves the way open to abuses of privacy and public decency.

Proposals for regulation by both stakeholders – the media organisations and the authorities – each have their strengths and weaknesses.

But a glaring absence in the debate so far is the third major stakeholder, the public, which is a beneficiary but also, frequently, a victim of Thai media practice as it stands.

As such, the public has every right to a major say in the debate on how to regulate the media and make journalists accountable when they overstep the mark.

The battle for control over information in Thai society has for too long swung back and forth between the state and the media. It’s time to give the public a bigger voice in the debate, along with more power over how the media behave towards society.

pypostbox@yahoo.com

THE ELECTION Commission (EC) on Tuesday instructed a sub-panel working on the draft organic law on the election of MPs to remove a clause addressing the “black card” lifetime ban from contesting elections, because the EC did not want to be the target of criticism over a mechanism that it did not initially suggest.

Under the new charter, the EC has the authority to nullify with a “yellow card” an election affected by irregularities and call for a new poll. It can also issue an “orange card” after the election but before results are announced, banning candidates who are found guilty of fraud from running again for one year.

However, the authority to ban winning candidates after poll results are announced is left to the courts, while terms in the charter’s Article 226 and Article 98 concerning lifetime bans from contesting elections – and who would have the authority to impose such bans – are vague.

After the black card plan faced fierce criticism when it was leaked to the press, EC member Somchai Srisut-thiyakorn on Tuesday stepped back from the proposal, saying the EC did not have the authority to impose lifetime bans, because that power should be confined to the courts.

At the agency’s meeting yesterday, the EC resolved to submit a revised proposal to the Constitution Drafting Commission, which will draft the bill, underlining removal of the black card reference.

The meeting cited the charter’s Article 98 (11), which already stipulates that people who have their electoral rights revoked would not be able to run in an election, meaning he or she will automatically be banned indefinitely.

However, the EC’s sub-panel in charge of drafting legislation disagreed with the decision, concluding the charter organic law must contain the clause to prevent problems in implementation, otherwise the EC will not have the right to petition the courts to punish offenders.

Judges consider amendment

The panel will today forward its recommendation to the entire EC again, which will have the final say on the matter.

Meanwhile, the Constitutional Court will decide next Wednesday on the constitutionality of the amendment to the charter draft giving senators the right to vote for the next prime minister.

Constitutional Court chairman Nurak Mapraneet called a meeting of the court to consider the amendment and whether the wording was legitimate and in line with the additional referendum question.

The judges are ruling on the matter at the request of the Cabinet, the National Legislative Assembly and the National Reform Steering Assembly.

The court will not summon witnesses to give testimony or subpoena any other documents, but will decide based on pre-existing guidelines.

In a separate meeting, the Constitutional Court invited the heads of five independent bodies to map out guidelines on establishing ethical standards for government agencies.

The charter draft stipulates that the Constitutional Court and independent agencies must finish drafting ethical standards within one year after the new charter takes effect.

They are also supposed to seek the opinions of senators, MPs and the Cabinet. A source said the agencies would only outline the principles of ethical standards, not go into detail what can and cannot be done ethically.

Office of Ombudsman chairman Sriracha Vongsarayankura said the meeting resolved that each independent agency would draft ethical standards by either revising existing ones or writing new ones. Each agency will then present their drafts at a gathering of all the agencies and the court in one month.

National Human Rights Commission chairman Wat Tingsamit dismissed concerns that ethical standards might not apply to different government agencies, saying lawmakers would ensure they could enforce ethics for every agency.