After months of kicking the can down the road on constitutional reform, the ruling Bhumjaithai Party has finally made a move -- one that appears to bring charter rewriting back to square one rather than move the process forward.
That reset runs counter to the public mandate expressed in the Feb 8 referendum, in which more than 21 million voters approved a constitutional rewriting process and conditions endorsed by the previous parliament.
Under the framework approved earlier, reform centred on amending Section 256 to reduce the Senate's role in constitutional amendments. Yet that effort collapsed following the abrupt dissolution of parliament last October, prompting Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul to call a snap general election that included a referendum on charter reform.
Now, however, Bhumjaithai appears intent on wiping the slate clean. The party yesterday submitted its own amendment proposal, introducing Chapter 15/1 to pave the way for a Constitution Drafting Assembly (CDA). At first glance, the proposal appears to revive momentum for reform. In practice, however, it risks restarting a process that had already gained public approval.
Veteran politician Nikorn Chamnong, a member of Bhumjaithai's legal team, outlined the party's preferred CDA structure, consisting of 100 members. Of those, 77 representatives would be selected from across the country, while 23 experts and academics from various fields would also participate. The model bears similarities to the body that drafted the widely respected 1997 constitution. Yet one key feature deserves scrutiny: applicants would be jointly selected by the Senate and the House of Representatives.
Under the proposal, charter reform would formally resume next month, with Bhumjaithai extending the CDA's working timeline to 360 days in the name of public participation. Alongside a 45-member drafting panel, a separate body would conduct public hearings.
Meanwhile, the opposition People's Party plans to submit its own amendment proposal, built around three principles: maximising public participation, preventing any single political group from dominating the drafting process, and eliminating senators' privileged role in approving constitutional amendments.
On the surface, Bhumjaithai's proposed CDA structure may appear balanced. Yet questions remain over who will ultimately shape the process. Given the party's widely perceived rapport with the Senate, concerns are inevitable that Bhumjaithai could still exert disproportionate influence over CDA appointments. For this reason, few can be expected to greet the proposed reform process with optimism.
The deeper concern is not merely delay, but design. Charter rewriting risks becoming less an exercise in democratic renewal than a tightly managed process that reproduces the same power structures under a different banner. If constitutional reform once again collapses, Bhumjaithai may lose little politically. The country, meanwhile, would remain locked into the existing 2017 constitution -- a charter whose origins and limitations have long fuelled calls for change.
