At the same event, the premier also announced that the next general election would be held on either December 16 or December 23 of this year as if to appease the increasingly discomfiting pro-democracy movement.

Yet, dark clouds are still hanging on the horizon in the wake of the premier's latest moves, as more and more people are losing faith in the merits of the September 19 coup, as well as in the five-month-old interim government as far as its performance on the economic front and the protracted southern unrest is concerned.

A growing number of people believe that the road ahead will be even murkier. The charter-drafting process is a case in point.

The process, which started early this year, is increasingly turning out to be a liability for the

military junta rather than one of

its potential assets as earlier thought.

Instead of carrying out the crucial task competently, with an emphasis on public participation and reconciliation, the 35-member charter-drafting body, hand-picked by the junta, has been tossing about confrontational ideas and suggestions on a daily basis.

Among these were proposals to specify in the charter that Buddhism is the national religion, another to permit going beyond the realm of Parliament to resolve future political leadership crises and another to adopt a multi-seat constituency system, which is strongly opposed by a large number of politicians.

As a result, it's unlikely that the new charter will have a reconciliatory effect on the country or be better than its 1997 predecessor.

According to the government's schedule, the first draft of this new charter will be finished by April 19, after which there will be public hearings to get feedback.

The 100-person Constitution Drafting Assembly (CDA) will then deliberate on the draft and make amendments.

The final draft is expected to be ready by the end of July for a referendum scheduled to be held in September.

Political parties will then be allowed to stage activities and prepare for the polls due in December, as the premier announced.

The premier's road map is therefore quite rosy. But critics are asking what will happen if the majority of people reject the new charter in the national referendum.

In such a case, they are also asking if the military junta would still have enough credibility left to continue its unfinished task or whether the referendum's failure would spell its end, putting the country at risk for another round of turmoil.

Given such immense risks and the high stakes behind a national referendum, there is a possibility that the charter-drafting process might not run its full course, as the proposed new charter could be derailed after reaching the hands of the 100-member CDA.

If the draft were to be voted down by the CDA, authority for the new charter would return to the junta. In such a scenario, the junta is empowered to take one of the previous charters as the basis for the new constitution.

With few amendments or none at all, the 1997 charter, for instance, could be enforced. This would avoid the need for the potentially risky referendum, which might further polarise the country.

In that case, the country would go straight to the polls even sooner than the dates announced by the premier.

Nophakhun Limsamarnphun

 nop1122@yahoo.com