A couple of weeks ago, PPT posted that the military-royalist appointees were trying to retain control of the Senate Speaker’s position.
As we explained then, the undemocratic constitution, put in place in 2007 by the military junta’s flunkies, changed the Senate from an elected body to one that is half appointed by a coterie of royalist judges and notables. This arrangement was meant to be the royalist elite’s fix to ensure that the parliament didn’t engage in any further dangerous democratization.
They lost, with an elected senator elected to the Speaker’s position. According to the Bangkok Post, the fanatically yellow-shirted Group of 40 Senators are squealing about “impartiality. This group of totally partisan senators, most of them unelected, are questioning Nikom Wairatpanich’s impartiality. Nikom was elected to the senate and then elected Speaker, but, as we know, yellow shirts hate elections.
The Post, seemingly showing its yellow credentials, states:
Mr Nikom’s support mainly came from elected senators who usually vote in favour of the Pheu Thai-led administration. He was also nominated for the job by Direk Thuengfang, a staunch supporter of the government’s charter amendment and reconciliation bids.
It seems that elected senators electing another elected senator to be president of an undemocratic body is just too much like… well, democratic representation. The Pos bleats about Nikom’s links to former pro-Thaksin Shinawatra premier Samak Sundaravej and yet is forced to add “in his capacity as deputy senate speaker, did not show his political leanings.”
The unelected lot and those who want them there are desperate because they fear constitutional reform could get rid of their undemocratic control of parliament.
