Thailand pushes some constitutional amendment bills

Move follows days of street protests calling for political reforms

BANGKOK — Thai legislators on Nov 18 approved legislations on the constitutional amendment, separately lodged by the government and opposition, but rejected the one submitted by a civil rights group.

A total of 647 lawmakers in both the House and Senate voted for the government bill and a total of 576 lawmakers in both the House and Senate approved the opposition bill. Both call for the setting up of a Constitution Drafting Committee.

Meanwhile, most MPs and senators abstained from voting on the group iLaw version, thus rendering it rejected during the joint parliamentary meeting on Nov 18. The iLaw bill was earlier endorsed with verified signatures by almost 100,000 people.

Four other bills separately lodged by the opposition bloc were also turned down by most lawmakers, who abstained from voting in both the House and Senate.

Two of the aborted bills were designed to deprive the senators, all of whom were handpicked by Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha, of the constitutional right to vote for the head of a post-election government alongside the elected MPs.

Protests have been going on in the capital as both supporters of the King and those seeking drastic reforms took to streets.

The protests came amid an announcement by Thailand’s Internal Security Operation Commander (ISOC) Region 4 that soldiers discovered an insurgents’ camp and seized their belongings following a clash in Thailand’s restive southern province of Pattani on Nov 17.

“The ISOC team had dispatched two patrols from the 44th Ranger Regiment to ensure that safety at Sai Buri district in Pattani Province was restored,” said Col. Vacharakorn Onngern, deputy spokesman of ISOC’s Region 4, adding that a group of insurgents was reported to be active in the area, preventing villagers going out to tap their rubber trees.

“One (Nov 17), one of the patrols encountered five or six armed men, who opened fire at the patrols,” said Vacharakorn, “then after exchanging shots with the soldiers for about three minutes, the insurgents withdrew into a rubber plantation. The soldiers chased them and found their makeshift camp.”

The patrols then seized the insurgents’ food supplies, survival gear, a motorcycle and a bag containing metal spikes for use on roads to deter pursuit, the colonel said.

According to Vacharakorn, there were no casualties on both ends, as insurgents had retreated and escaped.

Separately, the Thai Ministry of Public Health announced on Nov 18 that the Thai cabinet had agreed to buy 23 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines estimated at 3.469 billion baht ($115 million) from a lab in Britain.

That is around 5 dollars per dose.