Shenanigans involving a group of MPs and senators signing a motion to ask parliament to seek a Constitutional Court ruling on rewriting the charter bode ill for the reconciliation process.
The government's support for the charter rewrite declared by Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha during the joint House-Senate session late last month signalled a political compromise by urging all factions to step back from the brink.
The government also signed off a bill on a national referendum. But this week the 21 MPs, all from the ruling Palang Pracharath Party, along with with 52 senators, mostly associated with the army, signed the motion asking parliament to approve their petition to the charter court.
The MPs claimed they did it out of concern that an amendment by revising Section 256 to pave the way for the formation of a charter drafting panel could be unconstitutional.
During the joint House-Senate session, Gen Prayut was pressured to give his positive signal after harsh public criticism for lacking sincerity when he dragged his feet over charter amendment just as as political tensions appeared to be easing.
Government chief whip Wirat Rattanaset denied the motion was another delaying tactic, saying the process and the first reading of seven charter drafts on Nov 17-18 could run simultaneously.
But many disagree with Mr Wirat. Instead, they regard the motion as foot-dragging on charter amendment in breach of the commitment made. Besides, such backtracking has happened before. The previous time the political conflict intensified, the PPRP decided to submit its charter draft bill to parliament, but at the last minute made a U-turn, tricking parliament into forming a panel to scrutinise charter bills since they believed the pro-democracy movement had petered out. What hypocrisy.
The latest motion could derail attempts to ease the tensions. What is needed now is sincerity from the government to bring the country out of the crisis which originated with the 2017 military-sponsored charter that sets unfair rules enabling the government and its cronies to make ill-gotten gains.
What is going on indicates that Gen Prayut and his government do not really care about reconciliation. They do not really want to step back and, with such dirty tactics, they are only intensifying the conflict.
If Gen Prayut wants the country to move on peacefully, he must keep to his word as pledged to parliament that he will do his best to tackle the political rifts.
What he must do now is to make the MPs and senators withdraw their motion. The excuse that "all have their own judgement'' is not acceptable as the MPs are those in a faction under Deputy Prime Minister Prawit Wongsuwon while the senators are known to be under the government's control.
There is still a chance for those MPs and senators to behave with decency and withdraw the motion when it is tabled to parliament. They must know that hypocrisy and political trickery will do no good for the country at a time when all efforts are needed to achieve reconciliation.