Chasing a new charter

Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul's move to dissolve the House early, following a dispute over how much power the Senate should have in forming a new charter-drafting body, may give the impression that efforts to rewrite the constitution have collapsed.

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However there is still some — dim — light at the end of the tunnel.The fuss resulted from the Bhumjaithai Party's (BJT) about-face as it switched from bidding to scrap the Senate's one-third vote requirement, as stipulated in Section 256 of the supreme law.

Its backtracking hardly comes as a surprise. The party had no will to push for change from the outset. It was just being forced to play along in exchange for the support of the People's Party (PP) so that it could form a coalition last October.

Rewriting the charter was one of the conditions set in the memorandum of agreement (MoA) the BJT signed to gain the PP's endorsement.