Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing the Thai Constitutional amendment process that was basically forestalled if you will with the dissolution by Anutin Charnvirakul, the current Prime Minister of Thailand, now caretaker Prime Minister, the dissolution occurring on December the 12th. 

I recently made a video where quite honestly I took the Council on Foreign Relations or I should say their sort of communication arm, I think it's Foreign Affairs, on their website where they were talking about how it was People's Party that was really making the big push against Bhumjaithai who was the minority party was operating the government under a 311 vote in favour of Anutin's Premiership in Cabinet, which included the People's Party. But I brought up the fact that the CFR was trying to sort of, it seemed to me, to be framing the issue as between purely People's Party and Bhumjaithai which is not what was going on. It was actually Pheu Thai who was pushing real hard for a possible no confidence vote and then People's Party kind of got on the bandwagon with that after the process, it didn't really go their way with the process of voting on the Charter amendment, but as we'll see there's more nuance to this. 

I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: People's Party not ready for big league. Quoting directly: "Indeed, the Charter amendment process could have been saved if the PP (that is People's Party) had not excluded the Senate from having a say in the process. Otherwise, the House will still be intact and functioning as normal." So understand, the way that this was going to work initially was the Senate would, I think if this proposed promulgation of a Charter amendment, would have to move through the Senate, and as long as the Senate - a third of the Senate - voted in favour of it, it would continue on. But quoting directly: "The Party simply blew away its opportunity. That was a pity for all its efforts." 

So as you will read, and I urge those who are watching this video, go check out that article with Bangkok Post, you'll see that actually what happened was People's Party pulled out the provision requiring a third of the Senate to sign off on a possible Charter Amendment, they pulled that out, that was actually the sticking point that got the Charter Amendment derailed.

Quoting further: "Mr. Anutin later said he dissolved the House because the PP leader told him to do so," - so that's an important data point,’ because the People's Party leader told him to do so’. That is another thing that for whatever reason the Western press, the Western organs are not reporting on is that there is something of a working relationship between People's Party and Bhumjaithai, as there has been for quite a while now. They have worked together on multiple legislative initiatives including repealing of the bunch of the red tape that was promulgated under the Military Government, and there has been a variety of, they work together informing the Government notwithstanding the fact that People's Party wanted to remain the "opposition", notwithstanding they voted for the government, there is a working relationship there and I think outsiders are not keeping that in mind, for whatever reason; they may be trying to stir up animosity that isn't actually there. That said, quoting further: "and also because House dissolution after 4 months of his office was one of the conditions specified in his agreement with the People’s Party."

So that's the thing. This thing just came apart because there was pressure from Pheu Thai. On top of that People's Party decided they didn't want to go ahead with allowing Senate assent, or Senate sign off I should say - which I've got to say, I have got kind of a problem with that. I like the idea of the Senate weighing in on it and again, we're not talking about a majority vote, only a third of the Senators needed to sign off on this thing going on through. Again I don't know the exact reasoning behind why they decided to go ahead and scrap that provision, which then led to effectively, I think it was one of the factors that factored into Mr. Anutin's decision to go ahead and just dissolve the House. I think his thinking was probably a long lines of what he said in his statement that was written up pertaining to the House dissolution, which was “look, this government just can't work together anymore” we need to have another election”, which I think is about the most honest thing that has been said regarding this Parliament up to now, at least in a couple of years which is look it's just unworkable. Let's have a new election, let's see if it shakes out in a way that we can work together in an upcoming Parliament. My personal opinion is but that was probably rather prudent.

Again, this does not preclude the possibility of seeing another Charter Amendment brought to the foreground again, and hopefully we may see that in the future, again depending on if you want to see major changes to the Constitution. I think there is room for improvement. That being said, I am seriously against messing around with any of the foundational institutions that make this country great. That being said, it remains to be seen how all of this will play out, so we will certainly be keeping an updated on this channel as the situation evolves.