Draft Thai constitution draws criticism
The first draft of Thailand's proposed constitution, which was formally submitted Thursday to the government, could weaken elected politicans.
from the April 27, 2007 edition
Page 3 of 3
One new mechanism included in the draft is a crisis committee of politicians and judges to steer the country through any repeat of last year's upheaval. Another is a two-term limit on a prime minister. The latter seems crafted to stop Thaksin, a two-term winner who once vowed to rule Thailand for 20 years.
"Had this rule been in effect when Thaksin dissolved parliament [last year] he would not have been able to run, because that would have been a third term," says James Klein, country representative of the Asia Foundation. "So that's an escape valve, if you do have someone a lot of people don't like, you know there's light at the end of the tunnel."
Despite the bias against politicians, the draft offers some improvements for civil-society campaigners trying to access the justice system, says Mr. Klein, an expert on the 1997 constitution. It also closes loopholes that allowed politicians to pressure the news media and scraps a requirement for MPs to hold bachelor's degrees, which was hotly contested in 1997.
Still, it remains unclear how this latest charter will fare in a political system fueled by vote buying and influence peddling amid a yawning gap between urban elites and the rural masses.
"In order to have real democracy, elections alone aren't enough," says Somchai Phagaphasvivat, a politics professor at Thammasat University in Bangkok. "As long as the political culture is entrenched in patronage, no matter how well we draft the constitution, in reality it can go bad."
• Material from the Associated Press contributed to this report.
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