Thai Deputy Prime Minister says constitutional referendum bill forwarded to king

Thai Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha signed a bill pertaining the constitutional referendum and submitted it to the king for approval on Tuesday, Deputy Prime Minister Wissanu Krea-ngam said, though the new charter draft remains controversial.

Thailand is to hold the referendum on the draft constitution on August 7 to replace the current interim constitution adopted in July 2014, after the May 2014 coup.

The deputy prime minister also said that the cabinet had supported a 2.99 billion baht (85.51 U.S. dollars) budget proposed by the Election Commission to organize the referendum, Bangkok Post reported.

However, the new draft constitution was criticized by Thailand's two major political parties, namely the Pheu Thai (for Thais) Party and the Democrat Party.

The Pheu Thai Party said in a statement late last month that the charter draft empowers a senate with appointed senators who will have significant power to veto legislation of an elected government, Thai media the Nation reported.

The party thus called on people to vote against the draft constitution.

The Democrat Party said on Sunday that they disagreed to empower selected senators to vote a new prime minister along with elected members of parliament.

Prime Minister Prayut criticized politicians against the draft constitution and said on Tuesday that once the the draft constitution is voted down, then a new one will be written from scratch.

A previous draft constitution was rejected in September last year by a now-defunct National Reform Council, resulting in a rewriting of the charter.

The aborted charter allowed an establishment to have absolute authority and independence from the executive, legislative and judicial branches and attracted criticism from politicians.

Source: XINHUA