The Constitution Drafting Committee has agreed to maintain a 150-seat Senate with senators being both elected and selected and sitting for a term of six years.

The House of Representatives will consist of 320 constituency MPs and 80 others representing eight regions around the country.

The CDC members voted 21-6 for the constituency MPs to be elected under a one-man, one-vote system.

Each of the 76 provinces will provinces will elect a senator, while the remaining 74 senators will be selected to represent groups from the professional, government, academic and private sectors.

Half of the selected senators, 37 in total, will have to draw lots every three years in a screening process that will allow new selections. The elected senators will sit for the entire six-year term.

The CDC agreed that senatorial candidates should not have held a political position for two years before taking office and would not be allowed to do so for two years after their term expires. However, unsuccessful senatorial candidates will be allowed to run in other elections.

The Senate's authority and duties will be the same as stated in the 1997 Constitution.

Senatorial candidates were not allowed to run in an election under the 1997 Constitution.

The seven-member senator selection committee will include the president of the Constitution Court, the Parliamentary Ombudsman and the chairmen of the Election Commission chairman, National Counter-Corruption Commission and  State Audit Commission, while the Supreme Court and the Supreme Administrative Court will each select a representative from outside agencies.

The CDC agreed that judges should not be directly involved in the selection process.

Among the issues discussed yesterday was whether to keep the Senate or not, with how many members, whether they should be elected or selected, and their qualifications.

CDC member Charan Pakdithanakul said decent and neutral candidates would be unlikely to get into the Senate through an election, so he proposed that people elect 10 candidates and let these candidates vote among themselves on who became a senator.

CDC member Tongthong Chandrangsu said the problems with this system were that one candidate might receive the most people's votes, but might not be chosen by the other nine candidates, and that it might simply change the problem of vote-buying between candidates and voters to one of vote-buying among candidates.

The CDC also discussed how to prevent families and friends of politicians from getting into the Senate. Tongthong said that although people from the same family could have different political standpoints, it would be very difficult to screen for this, or to know how deep a relationship a senatorial candidate might have with politicians.

Sathien  Viriyapanpongsa,

Nerisa Nerykhiew

The Nation