– Parties’ budget management should be scrutinised more closely by independent organisations such as the Election Commission, Anti-Money Laundering Office, Auditor-General’s Office and the Ombudsman. It has been hard to track parties’ budgets from out-of-system sources that often came in large chunks.

– The roles of member-screening committees should be strengthened to balance against parties’ leaders when endorsing memberships.

– The roles of policymaking and democracy-promoting committees should also be more prominent in party arenas.

– Parties should adopt the primary election system in selecting MP candidates in order to field true representatives of the people.

– Heads of parties’ branches should also be able to participate in selecting their party leaders.

The committee’s resolution came despite a planned proposal to the Constitution Drafting Commission (CDC) that the organic law on political parties should require all parties to re-register with the aim to reorganise “tangled” party affairs.

The resolution also came with several new regulations on party management, requiring for example that party members would donate Bt200 to their parties each year while the government would also provide Bt2 million to each party.

The plan has been opposed by several party members.

Any party not conforming to the rule would automatically have its membership nullified. False confirmations – for instance, if people’s names are submitted without their consent – could also land parties in trouble.

“We don’t want to become culprits, accused of abusing parties,” committee member Sompong Sakawee said, explaining why the NRSA had changed its mind.

“Initially, [with an earlier planned proposal] we wanted parties to be financially supported by people and the government,” he said “But they rejected it. So now it’s their choice.”

Red-shirt leader Jatuporn Prompan yesterday also opposed the re-registration idea, saying that the budgetary sources proposed would be “nothing” compared to parties’ operating costs. Meanwhile, the idea of resetting long-established political parties by making them re-register was discussed by lawmakers over the past few weeks but it might not resolve the country’s endemic corruption problems because it would not address the root cause, academics said.

“Resetting the institutional parties to zero would only cause politicians to disperse like bees flee when their beehive catches fire, moving them to a new haven and to start doing the same things,” said political academic Yutthaporn Issarachai, deputy rector of Sukhothai Thammathirat University.

Yutthaporn’s remark came after a public debate on whether political parties should be made to re-register under a new draft bill. The idea has become controversial since the constitutional draft passed the August 7 referendum, paving the way for further legal enactments relating to politics including those relating to political parties and members of the House of Representatives.

Politicians and political parties have long been blamed for the country’s conflicts and severe corruption, leading to the call for a reset.

The Election Commission recently finished drafting the political party draft bill before submitting it to the CDC for deliberation as required by the new charter. Despite some CDC members rejecting the reset idea, there were lawmakers and reformers in favour of it. Some analysts believe the idea being discussed is the result of the charter’s organic laws being unfinished.

The CDC has pledged to complete the first four bills including those concerning political parties in the next two months. The new charter requires the CDC to complete all 10 organic laws in the next eight months after the charter is promulgated in November, in line with the junta’s road map.

After that, the laws will be forwarded to the National Legislative Assembly for deliberation before being submitted for royal endorsement.

Thammasat University law expert Prinya Thewanarumitkul also voiced concerns over the reset proposal. He said it would not make politicians more responsible because they would simply continue their corrupt activities in another party.

Prinya believes the plan to overhaul political affiliations would not eradicate party financiers’ influence over politicians. He said such influences “principally” bring about deep-rooted corruption.

“Previous corrupt policies largely stemmed from political party sponsorship, under which party financiers financed and exploited the politicians to gain benefits in return,” he added.

He said the proposed move to “start all over” would unnecessarily cause confusion and trouble.

Abhisit, who is a former prime minister, was commenting in response to a proposal by Seri Suwanpanont, chairman of National Reform Steering Assembly (NRSA)’s political reform committee, which will submit a series of proposals regarding election-related organic laws to the Constitutional Drafting Commission (CDC).

The Democrat leader said if the plan was to eliminate fraudulent party members, it sounded unreasonable and not in line with the current situation. The Election Commission (EC) had a party-member database in hand and it could check current members right away. Abhisit questioned the need for a resetting.

Previously, political analysts claimed that a large number of parties’ members were fraudulent with certain members falsely claimed to be members – which had seen some parties claim to have over 10 million members.

The “reset party members” proposal was also rejected by political reform panel member Nikorn Jamnong, who said the claim about fraudulent party members was untrue.

Nikorn said around eight years ago, the EC and the Interior Ministry had cleared parties’ member lists and used Information Technology system to help manage the database. Therefore, he said, names of parties’ members could not be duplicated.

Nikorn, who is chief adviser to Chart Thai Pattana Party, said at the present, current members of all parties accounted for only 4.8 million people, 2.8 million for the Democrats, and just 150,000 for Pheu Thai. So, if it needs to check party members, the authorities should verify new members rather than existing party members, which would also need a budget to be done, he said.

Abhisit also suggested that the EC have officers from various ministries, qualified representatives from academia and the business sector to help organise elections, rather than only officials from Interior Ministry to support the election administration, like the political reform committee proposed.

In regard to another NRSA proposal that would require party members to pay a membership fee not more than Bt200 a year, Abhisit said parties’ members were normally responsible for the fee payment. He said there should be a regulation stipulating that if members do not pay, their membership will be terminated.

Abhisit also addressed the EC’s proposals on the four election-related organic laws on such issues as elections, the Senate, political parties, and the election agency.

He agreed with the EC idea that it should require parties to submit policies to the EC before the election. However, he did not believe the EC is in a position to confirm whether policies are practical or not.

Abhisit stressed that all political parties have legitimacy to decide whether or not they field candidates to contest an election. And if a party obstructs the running of an election, that is basically unlawful, referring to the EC proposal to revoke a party’s status if it boycotts a poll.

“If such a proposal is imposed and a party fields only a candidate to contest an election, I am not sure whether that party would be considered wrong or not,” the former PM said.

Meanwhile, a majority of people – 77.6 per cent, agreed with the plan to overhaul political affiliation, saying they want “new-blood” politicians and to eliminate corrupt representatives, according to a survey by Super Poll with 1259 participants nationwide, which was released yesterday.

In contrast, 22.4 per cent rejected the “reset” proposal, saying the proposal did not allow people to participate in reforming politics.

Most people – 69 per cent – do not favour any particular party’s proposals to drive the country forward, compared to 14.6 per cent who prefer the Democrats, 11.5 per cent voting for Pheu ThaiParty, and 4.8 per cent for other parties.

In regard to the next election, most people – 68 per cent – approve of the Interior Ministry helping the EC organise the next election scheduled for late next year, in order to reduce poll frauds, according to a Bangkok University poll with 1,156 people, also released yesterday.

In contrast, 25 per cent rejected the ministry having a role in organising the poll, saying the EC can manage the election alone, while 6.7 per cent said they were not sure. Asked to what extent people feel confident in the EC being able to combat poll fraud, 53 per cent said they felt “less to least” confident, 37 per cent said “much to most”, and 9.8 per cent said they were “not sure”.

Forest reform is being handled by the National Reform Steering Committee’s public health and the environment committee which is devising long-term policies and looking to eliminating flaws in existing laws.

The special committee was appointed in May to look at immediate issues that may need revamping.

The six proposals comprise 22 measures aimed at helping concerned agencies reach the goal of increasing 40 per cent of the country’s forest areas as addressed in the 12th national social and economic development plan.

The proposals will be tabled at a NRSA meeting next week for deliberation before being forwarded to concern agencies for immediate implementation.

The proposals include the use of real-time data to monitor forests via the Geo-Informatics and Space Technology Development Agency that will allow officials to apply anti-forest encroachment measures more effectively.

Another proposal involves the setting up of a sub-panel under the National Anti-Corruption Commission that will directly deal with forest encroachment cases, as influential state officials have increasingly been involved in the illegal practice.

The government planned to inform the public about its plans earlier, but it has learned that some ministers would still be on overseas trips.

Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha had expected them to inform the public about the work they supervise. -The Nation

Deputy Prime Minister Wissanu Krea-ngam said the government had nothing to do with the matter.

“The court may have viewed that the government is related to this matter. But in fact the Cabinet and the National Council for Peace and Order have nothing to do with this,” he said.

He suggested that the National Reform Steering Assembly (NRSA) and National Legislative Assembly (NLA), which had proposed the additional referendum question, should be able to provide the best opinions on the matter.

The Constitutional Court is reviewing the draft-charter revisions made by the Constitution Drafting Commission (CDC) to determine whether the changes are in line with the extra question.

In the August 7 referendum, most voters approved the draft constitution and the additional question to allow NCPO-appointed senators to join elected MPs in the selection of prime ministers for five years after the next Parliament convenes.

The Constitutional Court’s judicial review is required by the post-coup interim charter to determine whether the revisions comply with the plebiscite results.

The court had requested opinions from the Cabinet, NRSA, NLA and CDC regarding the matter.

Wissanu yesterday also dismissed a report that United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon had expressed concern about the government’s road map to the next general election, due to be held next year.

“As far as I know, officially there has been no concern [expressed] about that matter. He congratulated Thailand on the peaceful referendum and asked for things to continue as set out in the road map,” the deputy PM said.

“The prime minister confirmed with him [Ban Ki-moon] that there will be an election in 2017,” he added.

Meanwhile, CDC spokesman Udom Rathamarit said yesterday that the Election Commission had agreed with the constitution drafters that a new law on political parties should allow the formation of new parties to be “not too difficult and not too easy”.

Representatives from the CDC and the EC met on Thursday to discuss the content of the organic laws to be written for the promulgation of a new constitution later this year.

Both sides agreed that the new law should encourage ordinary people to form and run political parties and should prevent wealthy people from dominating parties, Udom said.

CDC chairman Meechai Ruchupan had said on Thursday that the charter drafters would take the “middle path” in writing the organic law to make it easy for ordinary individuals to set up new political parties.

“In order to ensure the birth of ‘people’s parties’, we should set rules that are proper and practical,” he said.

In a related development, Wissanu said yesterday that the government would propose three new laws to the NLA aimed at preventing costly populist government projects in the future.

He said the bills involved amendments to the current laws on state procurement, budgeting and government financial discipline.

“Populist policies will be prohibited,” he stressed, adding that the amendments for stricter financial and budgetary discipline would be applied to the current administration first.

“We will set a precedent for the next governments,” he said.

THE CHARTER drafters have said that they will take the “middle path” in writing an organic law in the new charter, which will make it easy for ordinary individuals to set up new political parties.

When writing the Political Parties Bill, the Constitution Drafting Commission (CDC) will set certain conditions to prevent parties being formed with the intention of getting subsidies from the Election Commission, CDC chairman Meechai Ruchupan said yesterday. However, these conditions should not make it too difficult for people to set up parties, he added.

Meechai went on to say that the drafters would gather opinions from relevant groups on the matter.

“The organic law on the formation of political parties must adopt the ‘middle path’ principle. In order to ensure the birth of ‘people’s parties’ we should set rules that are proper and practical,” Meechai said.

For instance, the chief drafter said, the requirement for the minimum number of party members from each geographical region would not be too high.

Meechai also allayed concerns that the CDC might reduce the number of election commissioners from the current five, following news that it was studying the structure of India’s election commission, which has only three election commissioners for a country with a population of 1 billion.

“The study is not aimed at adjusting downward the number of EC members, so the EC members should not be worried,” he said.

Democrat Party deputy leader Nipit Intarasombat said yesterday that if they wanted to adopt the Indian structure, the drafters should adjust it to suit Thailand’s problems and culture.

For instance, he noted, the vote-buying problem in India is not as severe as in Thailand, and it is the world’s largest democracy with a caste system that is still widely practised.

Meanwhile, Meechai said yesterday that he was not worried about the possibility of the National Legislative Assembly (NLA) maintaining in the Constitutional Court that selected senators be given the power to nominate prime ministerial candidates in addition to voting with MPs in the selection of government leader.

Debate over Senate

“I believe the court will rule in a careful and straightforward manner,” Meechai told reporters.

The court is reviewing the CDC’s revisions of the draft constitution to complement the result of last month’s referendum, in which most voters agreed to let senators vote with MPs in the selection of a prime minister for five years after the next Parliament convenes for the first time.

The CDC has maintained that the senators, to be appointed by the ruling National Council for Peace and Order, would only have the right to vote while the NLA, which had proposed the additional referendum question, insisted that they meant to have senators able to nominate PM candidates as well.

NLA president Pornpetch Wichitchol-chai said yesterday that the assembly had submitted its written explanation to the court, which was the same as the document given to the CDC. Pornpetch said he did not think the court would summon NLA representatives to testify in person about this matter.