Both the government and the red shirts are willing to renegotiate the time frame for Parliament dissolution
The unbridgeable gap in the positions of the government and the red shirts over the time frame led to an impasse. The government is ready to dissolve the House in nine months while the red shirts demand it within two weeks.
In fact, the government proposed nine months merely as a bargaining ploy but a source said the bottom line for the government is six months.
Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said yesterday that the government was flexible about the time frame and the door for negotiations |with the red shirts remained |open.
"The number of months is not the point, but it depends on what we have to do to pave the way for peace," Abhisit told reporters.
The prime minister needed time to pass the budget bill and complete a reshuffle in the military and civil service, which could be done by the end of September, the source said.
The military leaders, in particular, wanted the government to stay on to ensure the reshuffle would be carried out smoothly, he said.
The shake-up in the Army is a critical issue as Army chief General Anupong Paochinda will be retiring at the end of September. The ruling Democrat Party wants to make sure that General Prayut Chanocha, the deputy army commander, will succeed Anupong.
The constitutional amendment is not a big deal for the government because the Democrat Party does not want to rewrite the charter, the source said.
The red shirts have overtly rejected the government's nine-month offer for House dissolution but covertly the red-shirt leaders are looking for an alternative time frame. They are aware that the two-week deadline set by them is not realistic. They have no power to force the government to follow their deadline, either.
They invited some intellectuals to discuss a proposal by 250 scholars of settling for a three-month time frame as the talks with the government were deadlocked.
Red-shirt leaders Veera Musigapong, weng Tojirakarn and Charan Ditthapichai were interested in the academics' proposal and showed signs of flexibility, said Puangthong Pawakapan from Chulalongkorn University, one of the academics who met the three red-shirt leaders.
Three months are enough for the government to implement urgent measures to fix some problems to ensure smooth growth of the economy during the political transition, the group of 250 academics said in a statement.
Three months are also enough for all political parties to prepare for the new election, it said. A referendum for constitutional amendments, as proposed by Prime Minister Abhisit, is not necessary, the academics said and noted that the current set of MPs did not really want to rewrite the Constitution.
"We urge both sides to show more flexibility and show their willingness to continue the negotiation," the academics said in the statement.
Veera said yesterday at a seminar hosted by the Journalists Association of Thailand that the time frame for Parliament dissolution was negotiable.
"It is neither 15 days nor nine months but we can talk about how long," he said.
Veera, the chief of the red-shirted Democratic Alliance Against Dictatorship, said there was a high possibility of resuming talks with the government.
