Bangkok: Reform Committee rejects new Constitution, elections postponed
Bangkok (AsiaNews / Agencies) – Thailand’s National Reforms Council, an emanation of the military junta in power since the May 2014 "white" coup, has rejected the new constitution drafted by the generals. The "Charter" was supposed to be the basis for relaunching a country plagued by severe political and institutional crisis, with protests that have often degenerated into violence. Analysts and experts believe the decision is actually a deliberate move by the generals to extend their stay in power in Thailand and postpone the elections.
According to critics, the draft constitution was divisive, anti-democratic and aimed to extend military power, in a period of great uncertainty also linked to the succession to the throne of the elderly monarch Bhumibol Adulyadej, 87, whose reign is coming to an end .
However, the rejection of draft by the National Reforms Council (with 135 out of 240) implies that the entire rewriting process has to start again from scratch; and the elections, scheduled for the second half of 2016, will also be indefinitely postponed.
According to the Thai military junta to power the new Constitution - the twentieth for Thailand since it abandoned the absolute monarchy in 1932 – must be in place in order to overcome the divisions within the country and return to a peaceful and democratic rule before moving to elections.
In early April, the Thai military junta had announced the cancellation of martial law, in place for months, but replaced by "new laws" which ensure the military leadership a kind of "absolute power". The rules grant the prime minister the power to issue decree-laws to "capture or kill" anyone who poses a generic "threat to national security or to the monarchy." And the soldiers will "in the event of any incident, arrest people without the need for a warrant."
In recent days, the Peau opposition party - ousted following the intervention of the junta, led by former general and now Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha - had called the draft "dictatorial" and a source of further "biases" in the country . Experts and analysts believe it a "trick" devised by the military to prevent a return to true democracy. Now the junta has a month to appoint a new committee, which will have the task to formulate a new constitution "within 180 days" to be put to a national referendum.
Thailand's crisis began in 2005, as major clashes broke out between "red shirted" pro-Shinawatra protesters, drawn especially from the countryside and among the poor, and the "yellow shirted" supporters of the Democrat Party, which represents Thailand's upper and middle classes, as well as the capital's elite, led in parliament by former Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva.
In the spring of 2010, confrontations between protesters and police degenerated, leaving about a hundred people dead. This was followed by a political process and new elections that saw the temporary return to power of the Shinawatra family. Still things remained deadlocked and last May, the military intervened to stop street protests that had left at least 27 dead, ousting Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, Thaksin's sister, who had won the previous election by a wide margin.
Although nothing is known about the nature of future political reforms, the country remains in the hands of the military with, as prime minister, the head of the Armed Forces who is tasked with reforming the state, a situation that could easily move the country towards further authoritarian rule.
The current prime minister was in fact responsible for the bloody crackdown in 2010. Since then, and this despite the many dead, no member of the armed forces was ever held accountable for it. In recent months there have been several incidents of censorship, violent repression of dissent, censorship of the media and convictions for treason.
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