Samak defends planned charter amendments

He said the government would collapse if the People Power Party, Chart Thai Party and Matchima Tipataya Party were dissolved so the coalition had to amend the charter for the future.

Speaking during his Talk in Samak's Style live programme on NBT channel, Samak said he initially planned to amend the charter during the last three months of his government's term but he now had to rush to push for the amendments because of the dissolution cases.

Samak described the current Constitution as "a vehicle with unbalanced chassis and without a fuse box".

He said the flawed charter was drafted and enacted because the People Power's opponents could not stand the strong points of the 1997 charter.

He said the 1997 charter made the government too strong so the opponents pushed for a coup to rewrite a new charter to design the government to be weak.

Samak said the amendments were aimed to benefit political parties in the future and it may not have retroactive effects to help the coalition partners.

While saying his government had to rush to amend the charter because of the party dissolution cases, Samak expressed confidence that the People Power Party would win the dissolution case in the Supreme Court.

Samak said the People Power's opponents had laid a trap and prepared a setup for the party to fall to since before drafting the constitution.

He said the party would be able to point out to the court how the opponents had prepared the setup and framed the party.

"We place our hope on the Supreme Court," Samak said.

The Nation