Meechai Ruchupan, head of the Constitution Drafting Commission (CDC), said senators – numbering 250 under the proposed new charter – should not join minority MPs in voting to select the next PM, otherwise the government would not be able to function properly and more trouble would ensue.

In the referendum on the draft constitution, tentatively scheduled for early August, there will be an additional question as to whether senators should join MPs in voting to select a prime minister.

Meechai said the people should have faith that if senators are handed this power, the Senate will be very careful about casting votes to select the new head of government.

But there is another concern. If |the Senate, which counts as one-third of the entire Parliament, and a majority of MPs collaborate, their combined power would be nearly absolute,causing difficulties to the opposition.

However, Meechai said such cases were not unusual, because the government normally holds the majority voice in the Parliament or would not have been able to form an administration in the first place.

In any case, the charter draft provides mechanisms for the opposition to have a role in advising the government. When the country is in trouble, all entities must work together, the CDC chairman said.

“For example, for an amendment of the constitution to be possible, it takes more than just the voice of the majority. Rather, every party should agree that it is really the best thing for the country,” he said. “All these mechanisms would prevent arbitrary exercise of power.”

Meechai also made clear that the referendum had two parts, the question to approve the constitution draft and the extra one proposed by the National Legislative Assembly.

The CDC is responsible for explaining the first and the NLA for explaining the other one to the voters before the referendum in August.

He said both groups would also have to tell voters that if both issues pass the referendum, the charter would have to be amended.

Despite the controversy over the extra question on allowing the Senate to choose a PM jointly with the elected House of Representatives, the CDC head said drafters would have to amend the charter exactly as stated in the question, once it passed the national referendum.

“We cannot independently amend it but must strictly follow the referendum outcome,” he said.

Asked whether the CDC would talk to the big political parties about the charter, Meechai said each party had its own goals and directions in which the CDC could not intervene. All the panel could do was to explain if they misunderstood any particular point.

“But if they just say that the charter is undemocratic, then I don’t know how to talk to them,” he said.

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.

If the bill does not include protections for the panel, he will suggest an amendment or a separate law to prevent disturbances.

Initially the CDC would rely on the political assembly bill and the assistance of authorities to keep out troublemakers, Meechai said.

On April 5, Meechai was disturbed by groups of protesters when he was giving a speech concerning the framework of the constitution draft. Subsequently he called for the referendum bill to include measures to curb such disruptions so the CDC could work undisturbed.

The CDC chief also said drafters would have to prepare for protests by supporters of political parties. The country’s two largest parties, the Democrats and Pheu Thai, have voiced strong opposition against the charter draft.

However, Meechai said political parties would show themselves to be unethical if they played foul by encouraging supporters to protest against the CDC.

“They would just expose themselves and the people would know how they play politics,” Meechai said. “But I still believe that most people would understand that this is about re-establishing the rules for the country and we have done the best we can. We heeded all opinions, put them together and here is the charter as you can see.”

Voters should listen to the drafters and not cause trouble if they want to understand the draft so they could make a decision about how to vote in the plebiscite, he added.

In the meantime, Meechai said the CDC would play a defensive game by trying to explain to the public what the draft constitution is about.

He expressed concerns that misunderstanding about the draft were going viral on the Internet, spread not only by opponents of the draft but also by those who did not understand the charter and propagated a false understanding.

A public relations team has been tasked to promote the charter draft using public officials who will communicate with the general public. Drafters will also go into the field in key geographical areas to explain the charter, Meechai said.