If you sit back and watch all the various positions taken on changing Thailand’s Constitution, you start to see that some crucial things are getting lost in the blur. One of the most important things is the criteria the Thai court said must be met before any changes can be made, and for the most part that is being ignored.
For Thaksin, it is fairly clear that if he can’t get the changes he wants in the Constitution, he will still need to stay outside of Thailand on the run. A few of his supporters have already had a taste of what happens if you make threats to the court. At the moment those supporters are sitting in jail waiting for their various court dates to come up. Buying their way out for now seems to have not worked.
Perhaps the most important part of the court’s ruling on Constitutional changes and the criteria that first must be met, is any changes to the Constitution must be justified. Saying the Constitution was written by so and so is not a valid reason.
When the Constitution was ratified, some 63% of Thais said yes. Only the votes Thaksin was able to buy said no. For the most part the map of Thailand looked like a Yin Yang symbol with the Thaksin controlled north east the only area opposed. That entire area was blanketed with vote buying, but fell short of getting a majority.
The court made it clear that if a particular part of the Constitution was proving to be troublesome that part could be changed. For the most part the Constitution is working fine. A few tweaks were made that allowed some agreements between countries to be made without the approval of Parliament. For the most part that made sense and was of benefit to the Thai people as a whole, as some agreements between countries are time sensitive.
However Thaksin seems bent on ignoring that and looks to just do what he wants. Once again this is classic Thaksin behavior. But then again he has nothing to lose except some money that will no doubt be used to buy votes again to get his way.
So the excuse that the Constitution was written by so and so will be replace with the new Constitution being written by so and so who just happens to be a convicted fugitive and his cronies. So it does not take to much too see how all this could pan out and the potential legal challenges along the lines of needing to prove the troublesome aspects of the Constitution.
Saying so and so wrote the Constitution is not troublesome, it is more along the lines of I don’t like those people, and that is just a personal opinion that carries no weight of fact. Other people are just fine with the people who wrote the Constitution.
So to say this is a popcorn event would be right, but in this case eating popcorn with body armor may be a wise precaution. If Thaksin’s attempts to change the Constitution are shot down by the court, more of his temper tantrums will be seen in one form or another.
