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[Lite Beer]

Shortening of road map to polls will need to be discussed: Wissanu
The Nation

BANGKOK: -- SHORTENING the road map to elections needs to be discussed with other parties, including the yet-to-be-named members of the Constitution Drafting Committee (CDC), Deputy Prime Minister Wissanu Krea-ngam said yesterday.

The suggestion came as a media outlet claimed that former National Legislative Assembly President Meechai Ruchuphan may be named chairman of the Constitution Drafting Committee.

Wissanu's remark came after Pheu Thai executive and former education minister Chaturon Chaisaeng suggested that the 20-month road map be reduced to 11 months.

Wissanu said it was better to give the public a longer time frame and then negotiate to shorten it. The six months allotted to the new CDC to draft a new charter would have to be discussed with CDC members if the time frame is to be shortened, he said. At the same time, passing organic laws - a task for the National Legislative Assembly (NLA), and allotted six months, would have to be discussed with the NLA, to see if it was possible to shorten that time frame also.

The Election Commission (EC) was given four months to prepare for a referendum on the draft charter. The only set time frame, which is stipulated in the 2014 interim constitution, was the three months allotted to a political campaign and general election, Wissanu said, although another extra month was needed to submit organic laws to His Majesty the King for endorsement.

Wissanu criticised Chaturon's alternative time frame, saying the proposal to shorten the electoral campaign period from three to two months may be acceptable to established political parties like Pheu Thai and the Democrats, but new and smaller parties would definitely be at a disadvantage, as they have to register, attract enough members as required by law and print campaign posters. He warned that a shortened electoral period may mean that both the Democrat and Pheu Thai parties would have to register their parties again from scratch in order to be fair to other new parties and this could be bizarre. He asked that the big parties be fair to newcomers, who can't even register the formation of political parties now due to the ban imposed by the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO).

The bottom line, stressed Wissanu, was that any shortened road map must be realistic and any reduction should be done gradually. "It's like selling goods by setting a price of goods at Bt200 and see if the consumer will not buy and walk away or will try to haggle it down to Bt160," he said.

In a related development, Wissanu urged the media not to speculate about the possible appointment of Meechai as CDC chairman. The deputy premier said the media should ask Meechai himself, although Wissanu said Meechai was currently attending a legal conference abroad and he didn't know when he would return to the Kingdom.

Wissanu said it had to be ascertained first if anyone had invited Meechai to take the post or not. He said he was not yet aware of that.

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/politics/Shortening-of-road-map-to-polls-will-need-to-be-di-30269130.html

-- The Nation 2015-09-19

[AGareth2]

Wissanu said it was better to give the public a longer time frame and then negotiate to shorten it

mmmmmm

[canuckamuck]

Like trying to get the controller for a video game back from a four year old. "OK, just one more game I promise"

[peterjackson]

So why not come out and just say it...... No plans for elections, we just love the power we undemocratically grabbed. Now let's negotiate back from that.

[DKUNPUTAF713]

AGAIN, why are you and the rest of the Junta wasting time and money

if your still going to have some of the same crap from the failed

draft???

Get out the Thai Peoples' 1997 Constitution, clear out

the Lese Majeste crap and let's get on with it!!

For cripes sake this isn't rocket science!!

And stop blaming the media for your own failures!!!

[ChrisY1]

'Ol bright eyes trying to be coherant!

[thesetat2013]

A great pun here!! We are going to have to have meetings to discuss if it is OK to shorten them length of time to have elections again. So basically they will spend months trying to decide if they should have elections sooner and by the time they decide it will need another 6 months minimum to get politicians to run and campaign and then actually have elections so by doing this is will take longer then it would if they just decided next week.

[Srikcir]

A little practicality can shorten the time to the polls.

A total thirty-nine parties were on the 2011 election ballot. Thirteen of those political parties that had votes greater than 0% should be automatically registered in the next election. The remaining twenty-six parties that had 0% of the vote should have to register again.

Or in the alternative five parties that had greater than 4% of the vote should be automatically registered and the remaining should have to register again.

Should a previous party be dissolved or substantially reorganized to a different party platform or ideology, it will need to re-register.

[waldroj]

I must be missing something in translation.

Deputy PM Wissanu said, "the proposal to shorten the electoral campaign period from three to two months...", may be may be acceptable to established political parties, but it would definitely be a disadvantage to new and smaller parties.

Then, as if to contradict his earlier observation, he also pointed out that these same (new and smaller) parties can't even register their formation now due to the ban imposed by the NCPO.

So, the new and smaller parties must be doubly disadvantaged?

With respect to the Thai people, no matter how long these guys take to produce this document, prepare for the referendum, and set the time frame for the election, it will still be a source of confusion for most of the citizens.

But, then again, might that not be the actual intent?

As Sir Humphrey Appleby pointed out:

"...there is a real dilemma here. In that, while it has been government policy to regard policy as a responsibility of Ministers and administration as a responsibility of Officials, the questions of administrative policy can cause confusion between the policy of administration and the administration of policy, especially when responsibility for the administration of the policy of administration conflicts, or overlaps with, responsibility for the policy of the administration of policy..."

From Yes Minister, Series 2, Episode Seven: A Question of Loyalty