Quote:Sun Jul 29, 2007 9:17AM IST

By Nopporn Wong-Anan

BANGKOK (Reuters) - Post-coup Thailand's draft constitution looks set to pass a referendum next month, despite efforts by some academics and supporters of ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra to derail it.

Passage of the charter, the 18th in 75 years of on-off democracy, should then lead to elections in December and the return of democracy as promised by the army when it launched its coup against Thaksin in September last year.

What sort of democracy the new constitution creates remains to be seen.

Most politicians and analysts agree that it signals the end of strong, single-party government, and will instead usher in a return to the constantly collapsing coalitions that typified the 1990s.

Critics say politicians will also be suborned by the increased power of judges and bureaucrats, such as happened during the "managed democracy" of the 1980s under army chief Prem Tinsulanonda, now the king's chief adviser and seen by the Thaksin camp as masterminding the Sept. 19 coup.

For example, the Senate, which was previously fully elected, will instead have half its members appointed by a panel of bureaucrats and judges and will have the power to impeach the Prime Minister with a majority of two-thirds.

Many believe the generals who ousted Thaksin will, in some form or another, also remain in the fray well after the elections to ensure the exiled billionaire does not try to make a comeback.

"It is by now clear that if the referendum is passed and the bogus draft constitution brought into law, it will return Thailand to a 1980s model of elite-bureaucratic government under military guidance," the Asian Human Rights Commission, a Hong-Kong based rights group, said.

MESSY OUTLOOK

Whatever the long-term political landscape, the immediate outlook after December's scheduled poll is messy, especially after May's dissolution of Thaksin's Thai Rak Thai party and the barring of 111 of its executives from running for office for five years.

A senior member of a small party that was not disbanded said the election would be a "battle of nominees" in which suspended politicians sent their spouses, siblings or children to run on their behalf.

Weerasak Kowsurat, a deputy leader of the mid-sized Chart Thai party, said parties would keep their powder dry in December in the knowledge that the next parliament would be merely a "temporary bridge".

The main agenda for the next government was likely to be reform of the charter, which was drawn up in haste by an army-appointed panel after the coup, a process that could take as long as two years, Weerasak said.

"There will be several bickering parties in a coalition with the only thing holding them together being their desire to amend the constitution," Weerasak said.

Quote:A pretence of legality

The referendum on the draft constitution has the facade of being a democratic choice, but it is being carried out under a distinctly undemocratic and repressive climate. Under the threat of the Council for National Security (CNS) being free to choose any charter they want and amend it as they see fit if the public votes down the new constitution, the referendum becomes redundant. This is not democracy, this is not the rule of law. The CNS is reportedly commanding all military and police officers and their families to vote in favour of the charter they drew up. Officers are reportedly told to act as ''charter ambassadors'' to canvass for its passage. And the state propaganda machine is pumping on all cylinders through radio, television, local officials, the Internal Security Operations Command (Isoc), the army _ it seems every ounce of manpower possible is being used to push for a ''yes'' vote.

The question is, would the ''yes'' votes that carry the veneer of having been won by force be credible enough to uphold the new constitution? While the CNS and its tentacles are free to roam the country telling people how they should vote for the new charter, those that oppose it are repressed and knocked down. People who campaign for the ''no'' vote are branded in a wholesale manner as members of the old power clique. Websites are blocked willy-nilly. Demonstrators face the threat of being fingerprinted or held in custody by police. Martial law is in place across half the country. That is the harsh reality of today, and it is not an environment that would be conducive to a free and fair referendum. Any referendum carried out under the current repressive climate and alleged forced voting cannot be used to chart the path of the future of a democracy.

The authorities are painting the referendum on the charter as a vote for peace and stability (yes), versus a further political strife and unrest (no). This is intentionally misleading and seeks to skirt the real crux of what the public should be voting on. The threat that the country will remain unsettled unless we vote for the draft charter is a cheap scare tactic, but one that seems to be working. This is not how the foundations of a future Thailand should be cemented.

The fact that deposed prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra was quoted in the Financial Times urging Thai people to reject the draft constitution has clouded the issue further, but voters must show discernment. Voting against the constitution is not the same as voting for the return of Mr Thaksin, although that often seems to be what the CNS would have us believe. We are being asked to vote on a draft constitution that gives a guideline to what form the future governments will take and what rules they would have to play by. And that is the crux of the matter. That we are going through a legal procedure does not mean our rights will be protected or that we are being given a choice. The Thai public must not tolerate a mere appearance of legality that persists in its stark absence.

When the coup took place last September, almost everyone who had been campaigning for Mr Thaksin's political demise rejoiced in the military's ability to succeed in what they had tried to do for months _ get rid of a prime minister they thought was corrupting the country.

The country is currently being run by a government that came from a coup d'etat. No soft words or fudging of facts can get past that undeniable reality.


The coup leaders might believe that by manipulating the laws and the justice system, they would be able to trick even the most well-meaning and intelligent of people that what they are doing is right and just _ and, more important, that the public has a choice. However, the pretence of legality, although characterised by a superficial similarity, is in actual fact the exact opposite of the principle of legality. Just because a legal process is acted out does not mean that justice is being served. The CNS must stop tampering with or trying to manipulate the result of the upcoming constitution referendum, or it will render the whole process meaningless.