Changes were necessary because King Vajiralongkorn, the country’s constitutional monarch, had declined to give the document royal assent.
A referendum that is initiated or carried out by military figures cannot be termed a referendum. Military coups in Thailand continue to demonstrate why that the military should never be allowed to interfere in politics. The military must be completely free of any party affiliation or political partisanship. Thailand has a number of fundamental constitutional problems, and referendums and elections need to be conducted at the same time. Its approach to referendums should be based on that followed in Switzerland, and its election framework should be modeled after California’s. See the Charter for Permanent Peace and Development for details.
