Thread by @SaksithCNA

THREAD: Today, a joint-session of the Thai parliament will attempt to vote on const. amendments - again. It’s the bare minimum of reforms the elected MPs could agree on, but the senators appointed by the prev. military govt could fail it - again. Here’s what we’re dealing with.

1) First a small history lesson: Following the 2014 military coup, the junta at that time (led by then army chief @prayutofficial) commissioned a new constitution that aims to prevent what they and their like-minded proponents called “parliamentary dictatorship”.

2) “Parliamentary dictatorship” was a thinly-veiled reference to any elected govt since 2000 that were won by parties led by @ThaksinLive and its later re-incarnations, popular but also accused and perceived to be corrupt by its enemies.

3) The 2017 constitution, Thailand’s 20th, drafted during the military govt, has put more legislative guardrails on elected MPs and more powers on unelected ones - incl. a opaque “20 Year National Strategy” imposed by then-military govt that no one should stray away from.

4) It also did away with a 2-ballot system and instead introduced a 1-ballot mixed-member-proportional system, loosely inspired from Germany’s system, with 350 constituent MPs and 150 party-list MPs.

5) Here’s a video explainer I did for @ChannelNewsAsia before the 2019 elections, explaining the current system which basically has a built-in glass ceiling for big parties: saiyasombut.com/blog/2019/3/12…

6) Thanks to a convoluted party-list formula the Election Commission conveniently decided *after* people voted in 2019, we ended with over 20 parties in the House and a ruling coalition of now 17 parties (plus defectors from the opposition) w/ a comfortable majority (276 vs 206)

7) And as hinted the video, the 250 Senators in the Upper House of the Thai parliament are all appointed by the previous military govt incl. military and police officers and others that are conservative to put it mildly.

8) This makes any const. reform pretty hard, since it needs at a ⅓, so 84 out of 250 Senators in a joint-session with the almost 500 MPs - and they rejected almost every attempt to change anything about the constitution, leaving only one single draft. bangkokpost.com/thailand/polit…

9) Which brings us to the current draft of const. amendment: a reform of the election rules with two ballots again, less party-list MPs (150->100), more constituent MPs (350->400), and a clear party-list formula *before* the elections. thaipbsworld.com/charter-amendm…

10) This little election reform has the endorsement of even the ruling @pprpthailand (and on the flip side the disapproval of the opposition @MFPThailand) because this is the bare minimum of charter changes they can agree on.

11) But even that little bit of election reform is apparently too much for the unelected Senators, who accuse that it only severs the interests of the political parties and threaten to strike it down. bangkokpost.com/thailand/polit…

12) Indeed, the increase of constituencies MPs could benefit parties like the opposition @PheuThaiParty who have won a lot of direct seat MPs until they hit a built-in glass ceiling and couldn’t then win any more party-list MPs.

13) On the flip side, the opposition @FWPthailand (now @MFPThailand) benefited from the current rules and most of their MPs are party-list, a result from coming 2nd or 3rd in many places and the system not letting those votes go to waste.

14) As for the ruling @pprpthailand and the govt, they gained big in local elections and are otherwise taking roots in electoral heartlands (being in govt helps) - however, that role to lay that groundworks fell on party sec-gen Thamanat who has been sacked out of the cabinet.

https://twitter.com/saksithcna/status/1435898357050789888

13) CONCLUSION: Yes, the two ballot system could favor one political party more than the other. But we might not even get there because the military-appointed Senators could block any meaningful constitutional reform yet again - some might argue by design of the current charter.