On December 10 every year, Thailand celebrates its first permanent constitution, which was endorsed by King Rama VII on December 10, 1932.
Thailand became a constitutional monarchy after a bloodless coup on June 24, 1932.
So far, the country has had 20 charters, with the current one being enacted on April 6, 2017, after a coup led by General Prayut Chan-o-cha overthrew an elected government in 2014.
The current charter is seen as providing “half-baked” democracy as it was apparently designed to let Prayut remain in power after the post-coup election in 2019.
In his Facebook post, Srettha said the country is being administered under the provisions of this charter, so his government has the duty to ensure the next charter is drafted from people’s input.
“Changing the constitution is a major mission. It cannot be done via force from one side. It needs a push from all sectors in society to reach the goal of having a ‘people’s version of the constitution’,” Srettha’s post read.
Radklao Inthawong Suwankiri, deputy government spokesperson, said the government has finished surveying the opinions of people in four regions of the country on rewriting the charter.
The survey was conducted by a charter-drafting subpanel chaired by Nikorn Chamnong.
She said the survey covered 240 respondents in focus groups across the nation, including ethnic people in the North, labourers in the Central region, farmers in the Northeast and Muslims in the South.
Radklao said the survey results showed that at least 75% of eligible voters want to join the charter drafting referendum.
The survey’s questions and responses are as follows:
• Do you agree with drafting a new constitution?
Yes: 194
No: 46
• Do you agree with retaining Chapter 1 on general descriptions and Chapter 2 on the monarchy?
Yes: 167
No: 70
• Will you participate if a referendum is held on drafting a new charter?
Yes: 230
No: 5
Radklao said when the new parliamentary session starts, the subcommittee will compile opinions from 250 senators and 500 MPs based on the questionnaire sent to them earlier.
She said the subcommittee chaired by Nikorn will also compile the views of representatives of 15 career groups and young people. These groups were invited to Government House recently to air their opinions.
The panel will also sound out the opinions of the Move Forward Party, which refused to send representatives to join Nikorn’s subcommittee.
Once all opinions are compiled, the committee on studying the feasibility of a new charter, chaired by Deputy PM Phumtham Wechayachai, will hold a meeting later this year to hear reports from two subcommittees. Apart from Nikorn’s panel, another subpanel is studying how to hold a referendum so it does not violate the current charter.