The parliament has voted against a Move Forward Party (MFP) proposal to hold a referendum on whether a Constitution Drafting Assembly (CDA) should be elected to draft a new constitution.

<p>A joint parliamentary session has dismissed a draft constitutional amendment, proposed by the Re-Solution group and related networks.&nbsp; The draft was backed by over 135,000 voters.</p>

<p>The parliament will reopen debate on constitutional amendments on 22-24 June, a major event that will affect the Kingdom&rsquo;s political structure. After the issue was delayed in 2020 and withdrawn in 2021, political parties and civil society have another chance to address what they see as hindrances to democratization and political advantage.</p>

<p>On 9 February, the upper and lower houses of parliament together voted 366-316 to petition the Constitutional Court over the constitutionality of the constitutional amendment bill, casting aside the regular amendment process.</p>

<p>After parliamentary scrutiny of constitutional amendments was delayed for a month, only 2 out of 7 drafts passed the first reading: the proposal by the government coalition and one of those by the opposition to amend Section 256 allowing the establishment of a Constitution Drafting Assembly.</p>

<p>2019 is counted as the year when the arc of Thai politics was most striking since it was a time of transition from the &lsquo;dark era&rsquo; under almost 5 years of the NCPO to the &lsquo;hazy era&rsquo; after the election (which had been postponed 6 times) under the 2017 Constitution whose complicated design locked politics into a multilayered parliamentary system, and the Future Forward Party emerged to strongly challenge the old system.</p>

<p>Ah, Ebbw Vale! &nbsp;That evocative name that conjures up the once biggest steelworks in Europe, the socialist ghosts of Aneurin Bevan and Michael Foot, and the gross affront to common sense that is Welsh spelling.</p> <p>Then the steel industry collapsed and the coal mines were savaged by Thatcher’s anti-unionism.&nbsp; By the beginning of this century Ebbw Vale’s people suffered chronic unemployment and its land suffered the toxic legacy of its industrial heyday.</p>

<p>Election Commissioner Somchai Srisuthiyakorn has attempted to put the kibosh on plans by the UDD to monitor the upcoming referendum.&nbsp; That much was entirely predictable.&nbsp; What was more surprising was the legal justification that he gave for saying that they couldn’t do it.</p> <p>He is reported to have said that the Referendum Act did not expressly permit it.&nbsp;</p> <p>But saying so you can’t do something if the law doesn’t explicitly permit you to do it – that’s complete bullshit.&nbsp;</p>

<div>Latest draft constitution has a lot of issues for us to examine: an outsider PM, increasing the power of independent state organizations, unelected senators, a Constitution that can’t be amended, extending the duration of the National Reform Steering Assembly (NRSA), a trick to dispose of PMs and Cabinet members, infinite amnesty for National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) members, and continued use of Article 44.</div> <p></p>

<div>In the draft constitution, there is no explicit mention of minorities or minority rights, making this constitution the only one in ASEAN to not have a provision for such rights. </div>