Crisis caused the last coup, Meechai says

THE CHIEF constitution drafter said yesterday he thought the military should not have staged the 2014 coup if there had not been a political crisis.

Meechai Ruchupan, chairman of the Constitution Drafting Commission (CDC) and a member of the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO), said: “Due to the crisis, the military was asked to get involved.”

He said members of the junta had confided with him that they did not want to get involved in attempting to solve the crisis because it would cause unspecified “threats” to them.

Meechai said the best mechanism in the constitution to curb future crises would be to empower independent organisations to warn future governments that pursue controversial policies that could damage the country.

“I hope this mechanism can help drive the country forward,” Meechai said yesterday during a lecture at an academic seminar “Democracy in the Transition Period” hosted by King Prajadhipok’s Institute (KPI).

KPI secretary general Wuttisan Tanchai, who is also an adviser to the CDC, said any mechanism to be included in the charter draft should be balanced and answer the dilemma of “crisis and democracy”.

“The important thing to consider about the power structure is the balance between solving the immediate crisis facing the country and the democracy preferred by the international standard. At the same time, we have to consider the mechanism of an answer as well,” he said.

Meechai said drafters had not finished deliberating on the recent controversial proposals offered by the “four rivers of power”, as the core government bodies are called, including that the Senate be selected rather than elected during a five-year transition period.

Using the metaphor of building a house, Meechai said people who were asking him to design a house and were only concerned with it being ready so they could move in might suffer the same vulnerability to thieves that they had experienced before. He added that people now were asking that there be “some guard” to protect the house in the first few days after its finished.

In a separate interview, Meechai said the CDC would try to finish deliberations on the proposal and declare a resolution today. After the resolution is disclosed, the panel would explain its rationale to the NCPO, he added.

He refused to disclose the CDC’s disposition regarding the controversial proposal, saying: “Don’t rush. We’ve got plenty of time.”

The final constitution draft is supposed to be completed and published next week.

Meanwhile, Pornpetch Vichitcholchai, president of the National Legislative Assembly (NLA), said yesterday that he believed the CDC would agree with the proposal because it related to the events prior to the May 2014 coup when the Senate could not complete its work.

“The selected and elected senators were in a conflict with one another. Thus, the four rivers of power floated such a proposal because we do not want the same problem to recur,” he said, adding that they hoped the Senate should be a “brake” on future majority-led parliamentary governments.

Pornpetch dismissed a report that the CDC would empower Prime Minister General Prayut Chan-o-cha to determine the origin of the Senate, saying the “five rivers” had never discussed the matter. However, he admitted that a selection committee would involve the current prime minister and the NCPO.

He said the proposal to include top security officers in the Senate was meant to prevent future seizures of power, in response to a poll that showed respondents were equally for and against the idea. “When they take the Senate job, they can exchange views with other parliamentarians,” he said, suggesting they could resolve a situation without having to stage a coup.