Thammasat University political science lecturer Chalidaphorn Songsampan said society has been in a divided and distrustful state with periodic violence for a long time, which has shaken the core of politics.

People had hoped the charter drafting would bring about reconciliation with renewed efforts to bring people from different factions together, Chalidaphorn said.

“The drafting process should serve that purpose by providing space for people to talk. But what we have now … it is the same as what we had in 2007,” said Chalidaphorn, referring to the charter drafting process involving little public participation.

“So, we are in this loop [of constitution writing]. And it does not solve the problem,” she said.

Chalidaphorn was among the speakers at the academic seminar examining the constitution draft at Chulalongkorn University, which was jointly hosted by the university’s political science faculty, Thammasat University, Ubon Ratchathani University and Mahidol University.

She added that she believed most people had already decided how to vote in the Sunday’s referendum, not based on their evaluations of the draft content, but on other factors.

“Many of us fear the conflict will persist while others may be afraid because they don’t know what the result will yield,” Chalidaphorn said.

She urged people to be optimistic and not to vote based on fear, adding that otherwise the country would not be able to exit the loop of closed charter drafting and conflict.

Gothom Arya, a rights advocate and professor at Mahidol University, said the constitution would be almost impossible to amend because it would require the approval of all parties including the Senate and the opposition.

He emphasised that the Senate, which would be selected by the junta, would be the determining factor regarding constitutional amendments.

Soraj Hongladarom, a Chulalongkorn philosophy lecturer, said ethical guidelines that would control politicians is an issue because it would be difficult to determine what constitutes unethical behaviour.

If every case has to go to court, it would be a heavy workload for the judiciary, he said.

DRIVING ALONG the main roads of Isaan, the distance between referendum placards posted by the roadside is often more than 100 kilometres. In many provinces including Udon Thani, it is rare to see referendum advertisements along the road. The most activity is in Nakhon Ratchasima, commonly known as Korat, the country’s largest province.

On a sunny day three weeks before the referendum in Muang Nakhon Ratchasima district, Reserved Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) students were handing out leaflets reading “charter referendum August 7” to residents.

The volunteer students had been trained to ask voters to cast their ballots in the referendum to decide whether the charter draft is approved or not.

The teenage students have been asked to help the provincial Election Commission (EC) to encourage villagers to exercise their voting rights, said Thitipol Todsarod, director of the Korat EC office.

The province has 2.05 million eligible voters and, as the country’s largest province with 32 districts, Korat has marshalled nearly 4,000 individuals to promote the referendum. The task has been a challenge for all concerned authorities, Thitipol said.

According to an EC source, the head of Provincial Police Region 3, the Provincial Public Health Office, the Korat Chamber of Commerce and the Provincial Education Officer have joined Korat’s governor to form a provincial committee, which is tasked with running and overseeing the voting process in the province.

The EC is also responsible for training polling station administrators, and last Tuesday alone trained 230 officials selected by district heads, according to the EC source. Topics on the training agenda include laws related to the referendum and the charter, procedures that apply before, during and after the vote, and how to use the Rapid Report App.

“The Rapid Report App will be used by heads of polling booths to report the voting results of each station after vote counts are finished. The voting results will be conveyed to the central EC, which will be monitoring the results nationwide,” the source said.

After the EC trains the district officers, they will pass on voting procedures to polling administrators at 4,476 stations, he said

Polling staff include teachers, village heads and other officials, the source said, adding that each polling station will on average have eight officials.

“Besides the provincial committee and the polling station staff, the EC office also has its own force to directly invite the people to vote this weekend,” Thitipol said.

Korat province’s referendum campaigners include 2,890 officials from the EC’s tambon democracy and election promotion centres, 300 volunteer ROTC students, 470 village health volunteers, 230 officials from the district level, 30 trained radio broadcasters and 25 EC officials charged with training, he said.

The Korat EC office has also initiated a referendum campaign to mobilise specific groups of voters.

The EC has focused on including provincial chambers of commerce and Chinese family business networks to promote the referendum, Thitipol said.

“In the cities, most people live in developed housing, which our campaigners could not access. So we have to ask for local business networks to cooperate. We want them to help to spread the referendum issues,” he said.

The EC yesterday promoted a “free and fair” referendum by holding a public discussion about the charter and referendum at the provincial capital’s city hall.

Korat Governor Vichien Chantaranotai presided over the talk, which aimed to explain the issues and answer voters’ questions regarding the charter and the referendum’s additional question about the Senate’s ability to jointly select the next prime minister, the EC source said.

According to the event agenda, speakers included provincial officers who were trained by the Constitution Drafting Committee and legal experts selected by the official organisers.

Thitipol said the EC and authorities are ready to stage a “Big Day” activity today. According to the programme, state organisations and the public sector including public servants, businesspeople, ordinary citizens and students will join referendum parades marching throughout the city to gather at the statue of Thao Suranari in Korat’s city centre.

“Big Day” activities will be held across the country in an attempt to promote the referendum and achieve the 80-per-cent voter turnout goal despite the relatively silent political discourse.

ELEVEN PEOPLE including top politicians from Chiang Mai have been charged with sedition, criminal association and violating the referendum law for allegedly distributing letters that carried distorted information about the draft charter. The accused will be tried in both civilian and military courts.

The 11 people were accused of violating Article 116 on sedition and Article 210 on criminal association of the Criminal Code as well as Clause 2 of Article 61 of the Public Referendum Law.

Chiang Mai Provincial Administrative Organisation president Boonlert Buranupakorn, former Pheu Thai MP for Chiang Mai Thassani Buranupakorn, Tambon Chang Puak mayor Kachen Jiakkachorn and Thassani’s sister Tharnthip Buranupakorn are among the 11 suspects.

They were yesterday escorted from the 11th Army Circle, where they had been detained for an initial seven days, for further interrogation at the Crime Suppression Division.

Deputy national police chief Pol General Srivara Ransibrahmanakul, Region 5 Police Bureau commissioner Pol Lt-General Thanitsak Theerasawat, Chiang Mai Provincial Police chief Pol Maj-General Montri Sambunnanont and top officials from the Crime Suppression Division took charge of the suspects before announcing at a press conference that they would be charged.

Pol Maj-General Chayapol Chatchaidej, chief of the Counter Crime Planning Division of the Office of Police Strategy, said the suspects had committed the crimes in an organised and systematic manner.

Post office officials in Lampang, Lamphun and Chiang Mai provinces tipped off security officials saying they had found a large number of dubious looking letters in post boxes from July 12 to 15.

Officials from the Election Commission (EC) examined the letters, suspecting that they contained messages that “distorted” the draft charter. The EC then filed a complaint at the Mae Ping Police Station in Chiang Mai, resulting in an investigation led by Srivara.

Witnesses and circumstantial evidence pointed to Wissarut Kunanitisarn as a suspect. He was arrested and charged with violating clause 2 of Article 61 of the Public Referendum Law, after which he confessed and provided information that helped police apprehend the other suspects.

Based on information provided by Wissara, police on July 26 raided local government offices in Chiang Mai as well as a company belonging to the Buranupakorn family and found the letters, Chayapol said.

Police said the masterminds included Boonlert, Thassani, Kachen and another suspect, Pairat Maichompu. Wissarut and Aimorn Dabsok produced the letters, while suspects Adipong Kammun, Krittakorn Potaya, Aimorn, Wissarut and Thewarat Rinta delivered them.

Tharntip was also accused of helping other suspects flee from police and providing them with support.

Police have asked the court to extend their detention.

Srivara said the 11 suspects would be flown to Chiang Mai and the case will be taken over by Thanitsak, who oversees the North.

Pol Lt-Colonel Thanyalak Thudi, who conducted a physical examination of the suspects, said none of the accused showed any signs of wounds or of having been assaulted.

Boonlert denied the charges and said he would only give a statement to the court.

National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) spokesman Colonel Piyapong Klinpan did not answer whether the 11 suspects still have the right to cast ballots during the referendum, but he added that Police Region 5 has no more than 48 hours to seek court approval to detain the suspects.

He said the suspects would be sent back to Chiang Mai where they wield influence, but the NCPO believes that local officials would strictly follow the law.

Meanwhile, 19 members of the red-shirt United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship including chairman Jatuporn Prompan were released without bail after they surrendered to face charges of violating the NCPO ban on political gatherings. The charges were related to their attempts in June to open fraud-monitoring centres nationwide.

The 19 people pled innocent and Jatuporn said they were released unconditionally.

“We have not reached any resolution to express our thoughts about that matter,” Nutchapakorn Nummueng, a representative from the network, said yesterday

“We said initially that it was interesting that they would allow the public to check. But in detail, we are not really sure.”

Election Commissioner Somchai Srisuthiyakorn’s recent Facebook posts encouraged people to help monitor poll fraud and ballot counting, and report the results online using hashtag #ReferendumResult in Thai.

But, that was only Somchai’s personal view, not a resolution by the EC. Its legality was unclear as Somchai refused to give further interviews yesterday.

He had suggested that if any irregularities were found, people should capture them on photo or video and submit the evidence via the Election Commission’s “Pine-apple Eyes” application.

The EC has also allowed local organisations to help monitor the referendum, but unlike their foreign counterparts, they can only observe polling stations from the outside, not inside.

Busted ballot box

They include the Open Forum for Democracy Foundation (P-NET) and Alternative Media.

“The referendum law does not permit this, unlike general elections,” he said.

The EC has endorsed five foreign groups with 31 observers to monitor the August 7 voting – the Asian Network for Free Elections (Anfrel), the Asia Foundation and those from Timor-Leste, Bhutan and Nepal.

They will be on watch from August 5 to 8. They will get ID from the EC permitting them to go inside any polling station of their choice.

Somchai also introduced the new plastic ballot box to be used at 50,000 out of the 95,000 polling stations on Sunday. To demonstrate the strength of the box to the press, he dropped it on the carpeted floor, but it broke the fourth time.

Attempting to explain the breakage, he said the box would not normally be dropped so hard and he might have used too much force throwing it on the floor.