Weakening govts won't help, CDC told

[rooster59]

Weakening govts won't help, CDC told

BANGKOK: Strengthening independent organisations and tweaking the election system will not solve country's problems: experts

The constitution drafters should not just focus on strengthening independent organisations, as the country is also facing a serious problem of imbalance between majority rule and the rule of law, academics and politicians said.

They also said the suspected attempt to weaken future governments through the constitution was not the answer to the country's ills.

Somkiat Tangkitvanich, president of the Thailand Development Research Institute, believes a poor checks-and-balances system is the big issue facing the country.

He said that some agents needed to increase their roles in this process while the roles of others should be reduced.

The bureaucracy, the parliament, and the people should take a greater role in checking a majority-rule government, he said, explaining that doing so could help resolve the conflicts between the government and the old checking mechanism.

Somkiat said the roles of independent agencies and the judicial branch should be reduced to only deal with law violations and not have any involvement in politics.

To create a new election system that yielded weak governments wouldn't fix anything, he said. Although it would make it easy for checks and balances, ultimately the government wouldn't be able to run the country and the people would become dissatisfied and lose hope.

Banjerd Singkaneti, dean of the Faculty of Law at the National Institute of Development Administration, said that Thai society had reached the point where the rule of law and democracy had come face to face.

And to resolve that, he said, the CDC had to find a balance when establishing a political institution structure.

The root cause of the problem was an imbalance in parliament, where the minority couldn't counterbalance the majority or the government, he said. This had happened in many countries in the world and the solution adopted to keep the balance had been constitutional courts resolving the conflicts through legal methods.

However, in Thailand such a mechanism was questionable when it came to the justification of using it, he said. It was a challenge to the drafters to design a parliamentary system that promised an efficient power balance.

Chawalit Vichayasut, acting deputy secretary-general of the Pheu Thai Party, agreed with the CDC on the idea of checking politicians intensively. He said he understood society needed good and high-quality politicians.

However, he added that what had been lacking in every charter were mechanisms that brought about equal control and checks and balances of the three branches of government including the independent organisations. Only the politicians had been targeted.

In a related development, political figures have criticised the new electoral system proposed by the CDC.

Khattiya Sawasdipol, a former Pheu Thai party-list MP, said constituency and party-list MPs were not the same and as such transferring constituency votes to party-list MPs, as proposed by the CDC, would not reflect voter wishes.

The CDC claimed the one-ballot system would make every vote count.

Chayika Wongnapachant, a former secretary of Pheu Thai's policy committee, said the CDC's one-ballot move was discriminatory against some parties and did not serve the nation's interests.

She said the vote-counting method designed by the drafters would distort voters' intent as the constituency and the party-list MPs were different.

The former would be close to the people and could work in the field while the latter would be in charge of the bigger picture such as the economy or education, she said.

Chayika said she wanted the CDC to rethink the matter to make sure the public benefited.

Full story: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/politics/Weakening-govts-wont-help-CDC-told-30272492.html

-- The Nation 2015-11-08

[waldroj]

"The root cause of the problem...design a system that promised an efficient power balance".

Any system of voting that disadvantages the majority (yet favours an 'elite' minority) is a sham.

[candide]

This obsession by charter drafters appointed by the Junta (these and the previous ones) to find a system avoiding the party with the most votes to have a clear majority in parliament is quite interesting. Obviously they would not mind if it were the dems. It seems they consider the red colour dominance in the electorate as quasi-structural, a kind of permanent parameter.

[elgordo38]

Winner takes all is the only way to go. Right Al? Electoral college? Marginalizing voters another bad idea which is being considered in one supposedly Democratic country. Except for the first one they are all bad ideas.

[Siammodels]

Wise words from Mr Somkiat

This man is a very wise person and he should run for office. He has hit the nail on the head and has given all the answers

Congrats

[Srikcir]

Somkiat has justifiable comments. But not only should the people should take a greater role in checking a majority-rule government, the people should be respected in their election of a majority-rule government!

Not to do so is a violation of the people's right to self-determination. But there are parts of Thai society that believe that they stand above the people's sovereignty which is only granted through their permission. And like the twenty previous constitutions, that permission is volitile and temporary.

[Baerboxer]

"The root cause of the problem...design a system that promised an efficient power balance".

Any system of voting that disadvantages the majority (yet favours an 'elite' minority) is a sham.

So is a system that allows a party with the largest minority of votes to have an overwhelming majority in parliament.

The party list system and how an absolute majority of seats can propel one party to total dominance, when they don't have a clear electoral majority is a sham.

[Baerboxer]

Somkiat has justifiable comments. But not only should the people should take a greater role in checking a majority-rule government, the people should be respected in their election of a majority-rule government!

Not to do so is a violation of the people's right to self-determination. But there are parts of Thai society that believe that they stand above the people's sovereignty which is only granted through their permission. And like the twenty previous constitutions, that permission is volitile and temporary.

Correct - and the people have the right to an honest ethical transparent accountable government, who respect and abide by the law, and not one that lies cheats and is instructed by a criminal from whom it receives payment.

[connda]

What all government needs and what all governments get are polar opposites.

-Let the wise understand.