The failure of charter drafters to decide on gender quotas for elected bodies may have prompted social activist Thicha Na Nakorn to resign from the Constitution Drafting Committee (CDC), says a member.
Buntoon Srethasirote said on Saturday that Mrs Thicha had been pushing for a rule requiring women to make up at least one third of local elected bodies' members, but several drafters disagreed with the idea.
"It's a pity she opted to resign since several drafters think debate on the contentious issues should be suspended until she could sway more members," he said.
Opponents of the idea reasoned that the rule would restrict the rights of voters who might want to choose a male candidate but could not do so because of the quota, said Mr Buntoon.
He said many drafters including himself thought the gender quota should be applied to candidates, rather than to elected members.
For example, he said it would make more sense to require that at least one third of the candidates that a party sends to contest national-level elections to be female.
“The other concern of the gender proportion proposal is a fear that we'll see more female relatives of [male] politicians throng the locally elected bodies because of their relations rather than their qualifications or merits," Mr Buntoon said.
He said Mrs Thicha would be succeeded by the person next in line on the list of CDC members chosen last October by the National Reform Committee.
The 21st person on the list is Nantawat Boramanand, dean of the Faculty of Law at Chulalongkorn University.
Mr Nantawat said, however, that he had not been contacted by anyone and declined to comment further.
Mr Buntoon said the charter drafters were getting closer to wrapping up the country's 20th constitution in 83 years, with the remaining 20% to be finished in March.
“We'll have to finalise 10 provisional clauses, discuss all remaining arguments and debates on contentious issues such as whether some independent organisations should be dissolved, crafting the intent clause in the charter and verifying all the articles so that they are not in conflicts with one another,” he said.
By April 11, he said, the draft charter would be published and then sent to Gen Prayut Chan-o-cha, the chairman of the National Council for Peace and Order.