Activists lodge pro-rewrite petition

About 500 demonstrators, led by Weng Tojirakan and Jaran Dittha-apichai from the Democratic Alliance Against Dictatorship, gathered outside Parliament in the morning.

They presented the list of charter-change supporters, most of them gathered from the northeastern provinces, to first Deputy House Speaker Somsak Kiatsuranond.

The demonstrators spilled onto U Thong Nai Road in front of the Parliament compound, causing severe congestion on the adjacent roads. They had travelled from the Northeast in more than 30 buses and vans and wore T-shirts and held paper flags with messages such as, "Take back your 2007 Constitution and return our 1997 Constitution" and "We don't want the robber's version".

A source said many of the demonstrators were each promised Bt420, with free meals and drinks.

Some 20 MPs from the ruling People Power Party and more than 10 elected senators from the northeast later accepted a petition by the pro-amendment crowd.

Jatuporn Phromphan, one of the People Power MPs present, promised the demonstrators that it was a duty for him and his colleagues in Parliament to realise their request for a charter rewrite. He said detractors of changes to the Constitution were trying to portray them as a threat to the monarchy.

Jaran said that if the anti-amendment People's Alliance for Democracy continued with its rallies, supporters of charter changes would also hold "parallel rallies".

The pro-amendment demonstrators later moved on foot to the Democracy Monument, where they released 2,540 balloons as a symbol for their call for reinstatement of the 1997 (2540 BE) constitution.