New Mandala

The Bangkok Post is certainly quick off the mark! Vitit Muntarbhorn has not yet presented his lecture at the ANU today, but here is a full report “derived from a lecture on Human Rights Governance under Thailand’s Constitution , delivered at the Australian National University, Canberra, on August 6, 2007. ” The lecture will be held from [...]

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From the Bangkok Post.�
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Prisoners at the Ubon Ratchathani central prison are reading the draft constitution. Even though they have no right to vote, inmates at 134 prisons across the country have been asked by the director general of the Corrections Department Nathee Jitsawang to send letters to their families to promote the referendum on Aug [...]

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Thailand’s constitutional referendum is the junta’s first demonstration of sufficiency democracy in action.
Less than a year ago, anti-Thaksin and pro-coup advocates were very keen to discredit the validity of the electoral process. Electoral politics was condemned and electors were slandered as uninformed, parochial and self-interested pawns of party canvassers.
Now, in an act that would be [...]

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This post is part of New Mandala’s month-long feature on Thailand’s 2007 constitution referendum.
Full-steam campaigning does not seem to be on the cards in Chachoengsao. Chaturon Chaisaeng did not turn up as promised at a discussion of the draft constitution held on August 1 at the Rajaphat University. He cancelled his appearance at 5 pm the [...]

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From the internet edition of the Bangkok Post:
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Referendum campaign launched
More than 10,000 people, including students and government officials, from all districts in Nakhon Ratchasima marched in Korat yesterday as a nationwide campaign began urging people to vote in the Aug 19 constitutional referendum.
UPDATE: And what about this hot air from the junta’s Public Relations [...]

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[New Mandala guest contributor, Thorn Pitidol, recently interviewed Associate Professor Attachak Satayanurak, lecturer in history in the Faculty of Humanities at Chiangmai Univeristy. Attachak is a member of the Midnight University group of academics, and is a major proponent of the campaign “Vote Against the 2007 Constitution”.  This post is part of New Mandala's feature on the 2007 constitutional referendum.]
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I [...]

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With the referendum scheduled for less than a month away, I thought it was probably a good time to post a link to the full text of the draft constitution.  The official 112-page draft is available here.  A translation of a previous version of the constitution (with 299 rather than 308 sections)  has also been prepared.  It [...]

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Thailand’s electoral system may be struggling to keep up with its demographic transition. I recently received the following message from a friend in Bangkok.
This upcoming referendum is another important event of Thai politics. I have just registered my name at the Jatujak district, Bangkok, to have a right to cast my vote on the referendum [...]

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This brief article from The Nation has already been posted by one of our regular commenters, but it deserves a more prominent billing:
A combined unit of 20 soldiers and 10 policemen Friday conducted a search on a home of a former Thai Rak Thai MP in Kamphaeng Phet and seized materials for the anticharter campaign. [...]

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Here is a press release (25 July 2007) from The United Front of Democracy against Dictatorship�
The events of the past few days leave me with great consternation. Firstly there was unprovoked aggression by the state, in the form of reckless baton wielding and tear gas showered upon what was an essentially peaceful protest against the unconstitutional [...]

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