The spokesman for the Constitution Drafting Committee is questioning an apparent about-face by the People's Democratic Reform Council over the question of whether future prime ministers also need to be MPs.
Khamnoon Sithisamarn on Monday used his Facebook page to question what he saw as a change of stance by the PDRC over qualifications of the prime minister that will be written into the new constitution when drafting begins Jan 12.
Mr Khamnoon, who also sits on the National Reform Council, said that after the CDC proposed that those nominated by the House of Representatives to be PM need not necessarily be an MP, a broad group of politicians and others voice their opposition.
Without mentioning names, Mr Khamnoon said one of those opposed was a spokesman for the PDRC, which staged the lengthy protest against the Yingluck Shinawatra government that eventually led to the May 22 coup. Most of the PDRC members were former MPs of the Democrat Party, including PDRC secretary-general Suthep Thaugsuban.
He said the PDRC spokesman was reported by Channel 9 in a Sunday night news programme to have voiced the opposition to that proposal.
He said that, before the coup, the PDRC had implicitly come out in favour of an outside MP. But on a Channel 9 news programme, the group's spokesman had voice opposition to the CDC's proposal.
Mr Khamnoon explained that, before the coup, there were calls for the first deputy speaker of the Senate - then acting as speaker - to nominate a "suitable" person for the then-vacant post of prime minister to His Majesty the King for endorsement. The PDRC backed those calls in a march to parliament.
Because, after parliament was dissolved in December 2013, there no longer were any sitting MPs, such calls were tantamount to proposing that it was not necessary for the prime minister to be an MP, Mr Khamnoon reasoned.
Thus, he said he wondered why the PDRC had now changed its tune.
He noted that he ponderings were simply his own opinions, and not that of the CDC or NRC.