The issue of how far the Senate should or could go in the selection of the next premier has jolted the very core of the draft charter -- to prevent an unwanted figure from rising to the top of the country's chain of command and keeping national reform on track.
No sooner did the draft charter win an overwhelming mandate in the recent referendum than the hot potatoes landed on the laps of the National Legislative Assembly (NLA), the National Reform Steering Assembly (NRSA) and even the Constitution Drafting Committee itself.
However, it is not the meat of the draft that has generated a prickly debate; it is how part of it will be redesigned to incorporate the extra question that has left many observers and critics shuddering.
Some NLA and NRSA members have echoed calls, at times covertly, for the extra question on the Senate and the MP jointly selecting a prime minister to be put up for interpretation.
Mongkol Bangprapa is a senior reporter covering politics, Bangkok Post.
The idea of an "outsider" having a shot at the premiership paints a rather grim picture of someone in black cloak being brought in from obscurity to assume the country's top administrative seat.
The pre-referendum draft charter restricted the votes that decide who will be prime minister to the MPs. But now that the extra question has sailed through, the Senate will see its job widened to having a say in voting for a prime minister. It can also go so far as taking part in opening up the prime ministerial candidate possibilities to include outsiders, even submitting its own nominations for prime minister.
It's imperative we look at the figures. 16.8 million voters approved the draft charter and 10.5 million were opposed. 15.1 million voted for the extra question, 10.9 million rejected it.
The plain fact is that more voters supported the draft charter than those who said "yes" to the extra question. It is also the fact there are more people expressing their wishes for the MPs to have the exclusive right to vote for prime minister, which is stated in the draft charter, than there were people who endorsed the extra question, cooked up by the NLA, to allow the Senate to enjoy a widened role in selecting a prime minister.
That said, more people do not embrace the idea of an outsider taking on the premiership.
The wording of the extra question explicitly states that the first batch of MPs and senators, taking office within the first five years of parliament from the promulgation of the charter, approves the prime minister in pursuit of national reforms under the roadmap.
The extra question does not state that the Senate can nominate a prime minister and no NLA members who attended the pre-referendum forums to inform voters about the extra question said they wanted the senators to enlist prime ministerial candidates as well.
If they had made known their wish known, I would have had plenty to report.
The MPs should have a go at choosing the prime minister before the senators can move in and join them. If not, it would be defying the political parties' right to nominate the prime ministerial candidates of their choice.
The Senate nominating a prime minister with no consent from political parties could throw political stability into tatters, particularly if the government of the day is a minority one.
Instability could well disrupt and even derail national reform. My plea to the CDC now is to stand firm on its principles and reshape the draft charter wisely to accommodate the extra question in keeping with the constitutional spirit.