The political reform committee has dismissed criticism it is proposing a presidential system and insisted on direct election of cabinet ministers.
Up until now, the prime minister was elected by MPs but since so many MPs win seats through vote-buying, they elect the PM who can give them mutual benefits, said Sombat Thamrongthanyawong, chairman of the committee, one of the 11 set up by the National Reform Council to propose changes to be included in the new constitution.
Also under the old system, when a party had a majority vote in Parliament, checks by the legislative branch were not possible because most MPs only wanted to enact bills proposed by the government.
These flaws called for the separation of powers between the government and Parliament for more efficiencies, he said.
The committee proposed that people directly elect the prime minister and cabinet members. Each party will offer as candidates the PM and cabinet ministers up to the numbers specified by law.
If in the first poll, no party wins a majority vote, the two parties with the highest votes will compete in another poll to make vote-buying more difficult and costly, Mr Sombat said on Tuesday.
On a concern an elected government with a minority vote might have difficulty doing its job, Mr Sombat said Thai politics consisted of many parties and a government could form allies.
Mr Sombat ruled out criticism the proposal was like a presidential system, saying these elected people would serve as cabinet ministers, not as the head of state. On worries elected leaders will be so emboldened by their popularity they act like the head of state, he said most Thais were loyal to the monarch and would not support disloyal people to run the country.
The 2014 charter, as well as its predecessors, stipulates His Majesty the King is the head of state.
In the absence of a government, an interim one will be set up, with all permanent secretaries serving as ministers. They shall select one among themselves to serv as the prime minister.
For parliament, the committee still favours two houses but not party-list MPs.
"Party lists are a tool to pay back tycoons and influential people of a party," Mr Sombat said.
There will be a total of 350 MPs. Each constituency will have no more than three MPs and the one man-one vote method is proposed, which should address the problem of an MP overwhelmed by their responsibilities.
The Senate will have 154 members. Half of them will be elected, one from each province. The rest will be elected among their respective profession groups.
As for independent organisations reform, deputy committee chairman Direk Teungfung said it was necessary to keep the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) but the term of the commissioners had to be cut to five from nine years.
The panel also proposed merging the NACC with the Public Sector Anti-Corruption Commission and the Anti-Money Laundering Committee.
A new independent body called the national evaluation commission is proposed to evaluate the performances of C-10 government officials and state enterprise executives. It will also scrutinise for irregularities and corruption in large state projects.
The term of election commissioners should also be reduced to seven years from five and the EC might be empowered to search without warrants during elections.
The EC, however, will have to send to court a case where it recommended a "red card" or revoking the right to run in an election. It can only issue a "yellow card" or call a new election.
An MP candidate must not have his registered or unregistered spouse, parents as well as children, natural or adopted, run for political offices.
Mr Sombat stressed these were just preliminary proposals and the NRC will discuss them in detail on Dec 15-17 to be proposed to the Constitution Drafting Assembly.
Boonlert Kachayudhadej, another committee member, said it would be harder to dissolve a party, except for serious offences such as those affecting the monarchy or toppling democratic rule.
Worawit Srianunraksa, another member, said the removing politicians would be easier. In addition to corruption and malfeasance charges, tax charges could disqualify them and MPs banned from politics under the new charter could not enter politics ever again, except for libel or misdemeanour suits.
"The new rules won't have retroactive effect so the two groups banned earlier — the so-called groups of 109 and 111 — will not be affected," Mr Worawit said.