Pheu Thai Party

denounces the draft constitution which denies that sovereign power
belongs to the people,

but allowsthe succession of power while making the government weak,

and granting independent agencies and the Constitutional Court
power to control the government that comes from the people. Such constitutions
cannot resolve the economic woes of the country,

or address the afflictions of the people.

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  Pheu
Thai Party hadmade statements that Thailand must have a good constitution that
is democratic in accordance to international principles with respect to human
rights, upholding the rule of law, whilethe agencies exercising sovereign power
must have balance, responsibility and respect the mandateof the people who are
the true owner of the sovereign power. It must promote harmony and
reconciliation while driving the various facets of national reform in a
tangible manner.

  Previously
Pheu Thai Party has made a proposal to the Constitution Drafting Committee in
which key points may be summarized as follows:

1) 
To uphold the democratic
principles that acknowledge true sovereign power belongs to the Thai people and
not to certain individuals or groups of individuals.

2) 
To create a mechanism in
administering the nation so that all agencies exercising sovereign power can carry
out its duty for the people with efficiency,under the rule of law and good
governance, with appropriate counter-balance system that the people may jointly
participate.

3) 
The people must have the power to directly
elect their representatives, and the leader of the executive branch mustonly be
amongst those elected. Making changes to the current electoral system, that is already
familiar to the Thai society and problem free, will only bring disruption,
troubles and inefficiencies.

4) 
The constitution must be amendable
based on the prevailing situation and such changes should not be made too
difficult.

However, when one considers the draft charter released by the
Constitution Drafting Committee chaired by MeechaiRuchupan which was unveiled
to the public, it can be seen that this draft is apparently not democratic
under internationally accepted principles,nor is it democratic in the “Thai
style” which the people are used to. In the draft charter, the people are
deprived of their rights, and the sovereign power of the people iscurbed and
falls under supervisory control by unelected agencies. Only a handful of non-elected
people decide the fate of the nation. The government is weakened, lacks
stability and would be unable to sustain its efforts for national development.
It cannot formulate long-term policies and would be unable to address the distress
of the people. The key issues are as follows:

1. 
It creates an
electoral system that leads to a weak coalition government and denies people
the opportunity to elect constituency MP separately from the political party
whichwill confuse the people, and force them to only use the ballot to vote for
theirconstituency candidate. Such weak governments cannot resolve the distress
of the people and become a hindrance to national development and will not be
accepted by the international community.

2. 
The new electoral system will
weaken the political parties and bring about political negotiations that will
lead to the succession of power by the coup council and provides the
opportunity for non-MPs to become prime minister. This eventually leads to the decline
of democracy and the power of the people.

3. 
Increasing power of the
Constitutional Court forthe dismissal of politicians and granting it with sweeping
and absolute power to interpret the constitution despite of many past incidents
where the Constitutional Court has stirred national crises for handing down
judgments in many cases without sound legal justifications. This will enable
the Constitutional Court to become a tool to destroy the elected
representatives of the people.

4. 
Giving the independent agencies
(Election Commission:EC, National Anti-Corruption Commission:NACC and the
Office of the Auditor General:OAG) power over the government and parliament by directing
and providing guidelines in administering the country. This deprives the
government and parliament the liberty to administer and legislate. These
agencies will seek to oppose government policies and render it impossible to
address problems of the nation and the people.

5. 
Stipulating that the senate be selected
by only a group of people shows complete disregard for the rights of the people
to elect their own representatives. This brings a blow to democracy even more
than the 2007 constitution and is intended to provide opportunity for those
currently in power to create their nominees to continue and inherit power.

6. 
Setting mechanisms for amending
the constitution which may not be practical as it requires at least 1/3 of
total votes from the appointed senate and at least 10 percent of votes from
every political party. This will bring about another constitutional crisis
which severely hinders national development.

Even though the Constitution
Drafting Committee claimed that this draft charter has measures to prevent and
suppress corruption,butthe utter lack of check and balance mechanism in the
interim Constitution 2015 has already exposed how sincere the intent of the
drafters are in resolving graft. This allows the opportunity toillegitimately
gainfrom various ways and from several positions at the same time. Furthermore,
there is only emphasis to control the political branch while ignoring to
formulate measures that prevent and suppress corruption in other branches, such
as, stipulating that other branches exercising state authority, including the
independent agencies and high ranking government officialsdeclare their assets
to the public. When thestructure of the political system and national
administration at the top have problems, and the people are given no voice in
the selection of these regulatory agencies, power crisis will inevitably occur
which inhibits any effort in resolving the problem of corruption. Moreover this
draft charter has been written under the atmosphere of pretense to listen to
some outside opinionsto make it appear justified, but in reality, it paid no
heed to the suggestion to abide by international principles and to have faith
in the discretion of the people. This draft constitution, thus, is worse
than the previous draft with ingenious waysthat allows the succession of power while
adding immense power to the independent agencies to overwhelm the government
that is designed to be weak. It stipulates those that come from election must
undergo scrutiny and must bear every responsibility while the coup council and
the agencies that inherit its power is able to do anything, and must be deemed as
completely legal and constitutional. Their actions are considered final and are
barred from any litigation. The elected bodies must abide by the rule of law,
but the unelected bodies need not. This does not yet include the content of
the organic laws to be drafted that will detail the power of these
constitutional agencies which may surreptitiously hide even more issues.

This draft constitution destroys
the well-respected principles once upheld by the nation and throws it backwards
while allowing the idea of authoritarian dictatorship to continue its strain on
the peoplemaking it difficult for the nation to attain peace. Pheu Thai Party
thus disagrees with this constitution draft as mentioned above,and emphasizes
that undemocratic government can never effectively resolve any economic woes
because it lacks the continuation of policies and the faith of the
international community. The result of the past coup d’état has been made clear
with the current economic condition of the nation. Consumption has stalled,
investments dwindled, government spending lacked efficiency,
export has shrank to record level, grassroots economy is in the doldrums, and
the people suffer hardship unlike anything that has been before.

Pheu Thai Party hopes that the
drafters of the constitution and those with power will realize the impending damage,
should this draft charter be promulgated. They should seek ways to make amends
so the new constitution still upholds democratic principles that is more or
less acceptable by all parties and not become the seed for another crisis in
the future.

Only a strong democratic
government can garner support from the people and receive the recognition from
other nations to foster trust and bring about efficiency in resolving the
economic problems affecting the nation and the lives of the people.

Pheu Thai Party

^29th  January 2016.