At midnight on 18 March, the Thai parliament voted to reject the draft constitutional amentment in the third reading.

208 voted in favour, 4 voted against, 94 abstained, and 136 did not vote.

According to the current constitution, a constitutional amendment in the third reading must have a majority vote of both houses of parliament (367 out of 737), plus votes in favour from 20% of the opposition (43 out of 211), and from one-third of the senate (84 out of 250).

With only 2 votes in favour from the senate, the motion to amend Section 256 of the Constitution could not pass.

Parliament killed the constitutional amendment motion after a group of government MPs and unelected senators led by Paiboon Nititawan asked for an immediate vote on the third reading, seizing the opportunity while MPs remained uncertain about the best course of action.

On 17 March, parliament had discussed for 11 hours whether they should suspend, postpone, or proceed to vote on the third reading of the constitutional amendment after a ruling from the Constitutional Court whose implications were contested.

Three days before this session, the Constitutional Court had ruled 8 to 1 on a parliamentary petition proposed by Paiboon Nititawan that parliament has the power to rewrite the constitution, but since the constituent power belongs to the people, two referenda must be held before and after the constitutional amendment.

Because of the lack of clarity in this ruling, parliament was divided over its interpretation.

On one hand, opposition MPs argued that the verdict did not affect the current process. The first referendum would be held after the amendment of Section 256 passed the third reading. And the second referendum would be held after the new draft by the Constitutional Drafting Committee (enabled by the amended Section 256) passes the third reading. 

On the other hand, Phalang Pracharat MPs and unelected senators led by Paiboon Nititawan and Somchai Sawangkarn said that what the court meant was that a referendum must be held before parliament can propose any motion to rewrite the constitution. So the current process of the constitutional amendment is nullified by the court’s verdict.

According to earlier advice on 15 March from Deputy Prime Minister Wissanu Krea-ngam , a solution may be that the MPs either fail to attend the parliamentary session, abstain because they do not know what to do, or vote to kill the constitional amendment motion to restart the process.

The Bhumjaithai and Democrat parties in the government coalition, who had claimed that they supported the constitutional amendment, thought that parliament should request the court to clarify their verdict further before taking any action.

However, on the evening of 17 March, the motion proposed by Jurin Laksanawisit, leader of the Democrat party, was overridden by Paiboon’s urgent motion.

On the night of 17 March, Gen Prawit Wongsuwan, the Deputy Prime Minister and leader of Phalang Pracharat party, said that the party did not betray anyone in the coalition as they notified coalition MPs that it would be a free vote.

After parliament voted 473 to 127 in favour of Paiboon’s motion to vote on the third reading immediately, a number of Bhumjaithai MPs led by Chada Thaised walked out in protest.

“I am not participating in this deed with this dishonest group, these Si Thanonchai characters [Si Thanonchai is a fictional character notorious for being slippery with words], liars, cheats and complete clowns. This parliament is a joke,” said Chada.

As parliament rejected the constitutional amendment motion, the Bhumjaithai Party held a press conference and released a statement on 18 March to apologize for failing to push forward the constitutional amendment saying that they failed to keep up with the games of those want to overthrow the process of amending the constitution.

It is important to note that 26 MPs of the Pheu Thai party also did not show up to vote on the constitutional amendment motion.

According to Prachachat, most of them have a close relationship with the former leader and strategic head of the Pheu Thai party, Sudarat Keyurapan, who resigned from the Pheu Thai party in November last year and started a new political party, Sang Thai (Building Thailand.)

Wan Ubumrung, one of the MPs who did not show up, said that he did not want to violate the court’s verdict.

“If my action is wrong, I will accept any decision from the party,” said Wan.

Opposition MP threatened with jail by senator

While parliament was discussing what to do about the court’s verdict and the constitutional amendment, in the afternoon of 17 March, Rangsiman Rome, an MP of the Move Forward party, devoted a portion of his time to speak up about the 11 protest leaders who have been arrested and detained for allegedly violating the lèse majesté law and the sedition law.

While Rangsiman spoke about the people’s distrust of the judiciary and the detained activists, the Move Forward party MPs surrounding him showed portraits of the protest leaders including Anon Nampa, Jatupat Boonpattararaksa, Patiwat Saraiyaem, Parit Chiwarak, and Piyarat Chongthep. The pictures also showed #FreePenguin (Parit), #FreeAnon, and other hashtags

Rangsiman said that these were the frontliners in the campaign for the constitutional amendment. Yet, they were put in jail for thinking differently. They were also threatened by officers attempting to take them out of jail (twice) in the middle of the night for what was claimed to be a Covid-19 check. To conclude his speech, he said that parliament should proceed to vote on the third reading.

As the portraits was displayed in parliament, unelected senator Kittisak Rattanawaraha asked Pornpetch Wichitcholchai, President of the Senate and Vice President of Parliament, to rule whether it was acceptable to show the portraits in the parliament. Pornpetch judged that it was not. Kittisak then went further to say that if they show portraits, then he could too. He also said that the release of the activists had nothing to do with the constitutional amendment and threatened Rangsiman “Do you want to join them?”