“Prits” urges the Election Commission to speed up the announcement of the certification of 200 senators.

Parliament, 'Prits' urges the Election Commission to speed up the announcement of the certification of 200 senators to allow the parliamentary mechanism to proceed with amending the constitution faster. He sees the allegations of the qualifications of the new senators as the cause coming from the 2017 constitution. Mr. Parit Wacharasindhu, spokesman for the Move Forward Party, talked about the 200 new senators who have been criticized about their qualifications because they are the ones who will consider and screen laws and approve individuals to hold positions in independent organizations. He said that everything that has been seen is the result of the rules designed in the constitution. Now that it has come to this point, what should we do to have the Election Commission (EC) expedite the investigation of complaints as quickly as possible in order to certify the results of the selection of the new senators as soon as possible? Before starting the senator selection process, as the chairman of the Political Development Commission, he pointed out that the law does not specify how many days the results must be announced, unlike the MP election, where the law only states that after the election is complete, there must be a 5-day wait. If the EC sees that the election was honest and fair, it must announce the results. Mr. Parit said that for the benefit of the political mechanism to move forward, he wanted the EC to investigate the complaints and complete them as soon as possible in order to announce the results so that a new set of senators could come to perform their duties. The role of the senators is an important part of amending the constitution, including the role of certifying constitutional judges and those holding positions in independent organizations, and considering reform laws that must be considered together. 'I think the EC should do it as quickly as possible. In fact, before the selection process started, I tried to get the EC to guarantee it because I saw a legal loophole here. So I wanted them to confirm how many days it would take. From what I have followed, the EC has never confirmed the time frame. Now that it has come this far, I have to emphasize that it will be as soon as possible,' said Mr. Prisht. Mr. Prisht said that this Thursday, the Political Development Commission will invite the EC to review lessons learned and answer questions about the selection of the new senators. The problems and complaints will create a political vacuum, and the current Senate will continue to perform its duties. Mr. Parit said that the vacuum will be less likely to occur if the EC hastened to announce the results. Of course, he does not agree with the rules that have been set, but the rules have been set in this way, so it is the EC's duty to try to make the transition from the old Senate to the new Senate happen as soon as possible. Some are concerned about the performance of the new senators, who have been questioned whether they were set up by a big-name politician in a province. Will they be independent and neutral? Mr. Parit said that what the public is questioning is the result of this rule design. Therefore, we should look ahead to the fact that the new senators will be important in determining the future of Thai politics, especially the agenda for drafting a new constitution. Amending the constitution is not something that must be considered in a joint meeting. However, amending the constitution, regardless of any section, cannot happen if it does not receive more than one-third of the votes of the senators. On the chances of the new constitution being passed by the old senators or the new senators, which senators have a better chance? Mr. Panusaya said that if it was the old senators, he didn't have to analyze the statistics; he would have seen it because we had proposed almost 30 drafts of constitutional amendments, but only one, the electoral system, was passed. We have seen the clear results of the old senators in trying to protect the 2017 constitution. As for the new senators, they will have to prove themselves if political parties submit drafts of constitutional amendments. There are two ways to look at them: 1. Draft constitutional amendments that will lead to the drafting of a new constitution. At the moment, the House Speaker has not included them until the first referendum is held. If the draft is included in the House meeting, a key point of debate is the origin of the components of the Constitution Drafting Assembly (CA). Both the Move Forward Party's and Pheu Thai Party's drafts confirm that the CA must come from an election 100%. However, this is an assertion that does not come from the government's side. However, if there are multiple CA models, the role of the senators will be very important. The second type of draft is a draft of amendments to each section because drafting a new constitution may take up to 1-2 years. Any problems along the way can be solved first. There may be a request to amend each section in parallel with drafting a new constitution, which will be a test of how the new Sen ate will view this matter. As for the qualifications of the new senators, which have been widely criticized by society as to whether they will be able to perform their duties effectively, Mr. Panusaya said that everyone passed the rules designed on Constitution Day 2017. If no actions were found to be against the law, and everyone entered the election through methods that were applied equally to everyone, but if there were any actions by the candidates that violated the law, the EC would have to urgently investigate and punish them according to the process. However, if no one did anything illegal, everyone went through the same process. However, if we think that we need to adjust the process to be a broad election or whether or not there needs to be a Senate, this is considered a question that we can discuss. From the Move Forward Party's perspective, the person who will decide how to design the Senate or whether or not there needs to be a Senate should be the Constitution Drafting Assembly that comes from d irect elections by the people. Source: Thai News Agency