The National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) must look beyond the small pool of people it trusts to fill the National Reform Council (NRC), and instead choose members based on the abilities of applicants, says Wuthisarn Tanchai, deputy secretary-general of the King Prajadhipok’s Institute.
Mr Wuthisarn, who has applied for an NRC seat working on local administration reform, warned that the NRC should be open to capable people who offer a variety of views.
“I hope the NCPO will not choose the NRC the same way it did with cabinet members,” he said.
He said the fact that several thousand people have applied to be NRC members bodes well for national reform.
Many of them are capable and willing to volunteer for the good of the country, Mr Wuthisarn said, adding that being an NRC member does not grant as much power as holding a political post.
It is understandable that the NCPO needs to be sure it can work with people it trusts, he continued.
But the NRC is tasked with designing national reform, and the reform council must be made up of people who are free to offer a wide variety of ideas.
If selected for the council, he vowed to create a process to gather input from political parties which have not nominated members as NRC candidates.
The move is intended to prevent politicians from complaining that they have not been given a say in the reform process, Mr Wuthisarn said.
Nominations for the NRC began on Aug 14. Yesterday was the last day for non-profit juristic organisations to submit NRC candidates at the Office of the Election Commission (EC).
A total of 6,729 people have been nominated as NRC candidates over the past 20 days.
The military junta has tasked the NRC with reforming the country in 11 areas: law and justice, local administration, national administration, politics, education, economy, energy, public health and environment, mass media, social affairs, and a special category to deal with “other issues”.
The NCPO has appointed 11 screening committees, each with seven representatives, to select 173 NRC members. Provincial selection panels will meanwhile choose a further 77 NRC members.
The NCPO will choose 250 members from candidate lists submitted by the screening panels, alongside those put forward by the 77 provincial selection panels.
Orathai Kokphol, a political scientist from Thammasat University, said a screening committee responsible for choosing NRC members for local administration reform is dominated by officials from the Interior Ministry — people who may oppose the decentralisation of government power, particularly a proposal that provincial governors be elected rather than appointed.
Academics who advocate power decentralisation have agreed that provincial governor elections should be one of the key priorities of local administration reform, she said.
Mr Orathai, who also applied to be an NRC member for local administration reform, questioned whether NRC candidates who support power decentralisation stand a chance to be chosen for the body.
However, Weerasak Kureathep, a political scientist from Chulalongkorn University, another NRC candidate for local administration reform, said the screening panel responsible for selecting NRC members for local administration reform is made up of several former provincial governors.
Many of them, he said, are reasonable, moderate conservatives. And he believed they may be willing to listen to other people's opinions and choose those who hold different views to push for reform.
Mr Weerasak added that Interior Minister Anupong Paojinda, who heads the screening panel, is also open-minded.
EC secretary-general Puchong Nutrawong said yesterday the 11 screening panels will meet at the Royal Army Club on Vibhavadi Rangsit Road tomorrow.
He said the EC will brief the meeting on NRC applications over the past 20 days and the process to choose NRC members.
The EC, which is acting as the secretariat for the committees selecting NRC members, will check the qualifications of potential NRC candidates.
It will then submit lists of candidates to the screening panels for shortlisting, Mr Puchong said, adding that the NCPO is expected to choose the 250 NRC members by Oct 2.
Mr Puchong added that a total of 619 people were nominated to be NRC members for education reform, making up the largest number of NRC applicants in the 11 areas of reform. The next most popular categories were the ones for miscellaneous issues (575 applicants), social reform (567 applicants) and local administration reform (383 applicants).