More people understand additional question, says NLA

 

Thammarat Thadaphrom

 

BANGKOK, 6 August 2016 (NNT) - The vice president of the National Legislative Assembly (NLA) said today more people have come to understand the additional question to be asked during the referendum.

 

Surachai Liengboonlertchai, NLA’s first vice president, said thanks to NLA members and volunteers’ hard work, the public has a better understanding of the referendum and the additional question which asks ‘should all members of both the upper house and the lower house be allowed to vote for the prime minister’.

 

He also assured the public that the new draft constitution does not allow a non-MP to be prime minister.

 

Political parties will each nominate three candidates while the parliament will select one of these candidates to be prime minister. Under this system, he said it is impossible for an outsider to become prime minister.

 

 

-- nnt 2016-08-06

Damn my tin foil hat just started to melt

An earlier post stated that fewer than a million people have registered to vote. Is this the case? If so, result means sweet f. a.

Quote

6 hours ago, rooster59 said:

should all members of both the upper house and the lower house be allowed to vote for the prime minister’

 

Let's also ask real quick if people understand the functions and purpose of the lower house and upper house, and what's the difference.

19 minutes ago, Cats4ever said:

An earlier post stated that fewer than a million people have registered to vote. Is this the case? If so, result means sweet f. a.

 

IIRC that was additional to those already registered. In the 2011 election there were ~32 million votes cast.

56 minutes ago, halloween said:

 

IIRC that was additional to those already registered. In the 2011 election there were ~32 million votes cast.

 

I think it was registered to vote outside of their own registered addresses.

This is about the worst poll and the least informed the populace has ever been as to what is going on in my view. It's the night before the vote and this type of news is coming out.

Assurances are not an adequate substitution for explicit language, especially in a constitution.

Under the charter draft, candidates for prime minister will come from parties’ lists of three candidates, but if none of the MP candidates wins a majority of lower house votes [very likely under the MMA process], both upper and lower houses will convene a joint session to select a prime minister. Where in the Constitution does it explicitly prevent then the nomination of candidates who are not MPs, thus allowing room for a non-MP to become prime minister?

Furthermore, the Constitutional Court would have crisis powers of a royal prerogative nature. This I believe allows the Constitutional Court to make institutional decisions that are not constitutional per se but rather decisions based on constitutional practice in the democratic regime of government with the King as Head of State.  Thus, it might follow that the Constitutional Court could declare a crisis if the parliament is deadlocked over selection of a PM and through its constitutional powers to select a non-MP as PM.