New Mandala

Here is a “quick and dirty” map of the referendum result provided by Chris Baker. Thanks Chris! [UPDATE (21 August): I have replaced the original map with a revised map that reflects the final vote count.]

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In the controversial April 2006 election the Thai Rak Thai party received almost 16 million votes. Many argued that this was an illegitimate election victory, largely because of the boycott by the main opposition parties and the low voter turnout.  What was the result in yesterday’s referendum?

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10.45 PM. This referendum is a lot closer than most people, including myself, expected. Given that there was no real choice the size of the no vote is striking. Here is a graph of the results based on the votes of about 20% of those registered to vote. The overall yes vote is running at [...]

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This post is part of New Mandala’s month-long feature on Thailand’s constitution referendum.  The referendum will be held on 19 August 2007.�
Image 1: Anti-constitution rally

As one might expect, the last days before the referendum saw a flurry of activities. On Friday, the Constitution Drafting Assembly’s (CDA) provincial branch brought together hundreds of students from a number [...]

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 A colleague in Thailand has provided these fascinating local perspectives on the government’s referendum campaign. They come from informal telephone interviews with residents of a village in northern Thailand where she has very good local contacts. The discussions refer to the major “Power for Democracy” rally held by PM Surayud in Chiang Mai earlier this week.
[A small [...]

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New Mandala readers who are closely following the “yes” and “no” voices on the constitutional referendum will be interested to hear of an anti-constitution petition organised by a “network of Thai students studying abroad”.  It is hosted by the Thai collective known as Biolawcom.de.  More information on this group is available here.  The petition currently has 107 names.

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This post is part of New Mandala’s month-long feature on Thailand’s 2007 constitution referendum.
 
In my previous post, I briefly reported on a provincial representative of the Constitution Drafting Assembly (CDA) giving a five-minute talk on the constitution at the monthly meeting of sections chiefs, kamnan, village headmen, and local governments at Bang Khla district. Almost all [...]

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This post is part of New Mandala’s month-long feature on Thailand’s 2007 constitution referendum.  More commentary and analysis from Red and White Stripes is available from his website.�
Constitutions are a bohemian subject to tackle. One could go into detail about what makes a good constitution, what a constitution should cover, the nuances of media protection balanced against national [...]

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There is clearly considerable concern within Thailand’s junta about the possibility of a healthy “no” vote in the upcoming referendum. Not content with legal harassment of “no” vote campaigners (including warnings to taxis sporting stickers declaring that “We take passengers but not the draft constitution”),  the elite advocates of sufficiency democracy are now reverting to the [...]

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Oh how we love those rural voters when they have no choice:
The day after the Aug 19 referendum has been declared a public holiday, to encourage rural voters to go back to their homes to cast their ballot on the draft constitution. (From the Bangkok Post.)

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