Thailand's permanent secretary of defence
General Surasak Kanchanarat yesterday urged the soon-to-be-formed National
Reform Council to quickly propose measures so the military junta could leave
the scene as scheduled.
Surasak
said his team had earmarked "five to six" topics covering political
reform issues.
"If
the reform council has other issues they can add them. But do not debate too
much, as it will be time consuming and will make the National Council for Peace
and Order [NCPO] stay [in power] longer," he said.
"And
when it stays longer, there will be people who despise [it] and cause
difficulties.
"I
acknowledge that the NCPO is not a very pretty thing for a democratic system.
There are people who say the NCPO should stay in power for five to 10 years but
if we stay that long then we all will die of old age. Let's not stay that long
but let us stay in accordance with the roadmap of the NCPO leader."
The
general, who is part of the ruling junta, was speaking at a seminar on reform
hosted by the Defence Ministry in collaboration with King Prajadhipok Institute
(KPI).
The 700
people from eight local administrative organisations who attended the seminar
were asked to answer five major reform questions.
- What
kind of parliament will be suitable for Thailand and should the lower House and
upper House be elected or partly appointed and how should they be scrutinise
and impeached, and should they belong to a political party or not?
- How
should political parties be reformed to make them truly mass-based with
people's participation and not just a political party belonging to a person or
a few people?
-
Should a system of directly electing the prime minister be adopted and would it
be suitable in the current political situation?
- How
should politicians be fairly scrutinised and impeached.
-
Should the title of Bangkok governor be changed because they are elected?
Thawilwadee
Bureekul, director of KPI's Research and Development Office, said the questions
were honed so that the participants could make a meaningful contribution to the
process.
Surasak,
who gave the opening speech at the seminar, said that by listening to various
sectors he had discovered that political reform was the main highlight of the
national reform process followed by how to tackle graft and corruption, and
reforming the bureaucracy.
He
added that political reform included deciding how politicians should be chosen,
scrutinised and punished.
Surasak
said many people thought the National Anti-Corruption Commission was too slow
in prosecuting bad people but there was also the danger of convicting innocent
people.
He
stressed that decentralisation was important but he had no details on how it should
proceed.
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