Off the wire
• U.S. economy to benefit from record Chinese investment: report  • Aspirin helps prevent heart disease, cancer in some adults: U.S. panel  • 1st LD Writethru: Gold up despite rebound in U.S. dollar  • Spanish economy to grow by 2.6 pct in 2016: IMF  • Spanish stock market rises 0.57 pct, closes at 8,546 points  • Gold up despite rebound in U.S. dollar  • Morocco-U.S. business development conference kicks off in Rabat  • Austria starts constructing border management facilities on border with Italy  • UNHCR urges involvement of displaced victims in Colombian peace talks  • Roundup: Terrorism, refugees to dominate Islamic summit in Istanbul  
You are here: 　 Home

Thai Deputy PM says constitutional referendum bill forwarded to king

Xinhua, April 13, 2016 Adjust font size:

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. Endit