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100 ENHANCING ELECTIONS AS INSTRUMENTS OF DEMOCRACY IN THE ASEAN REGION

After a new constitution of Thailand was drafted in 2007,
a constitutional referendum was then held by the Election Commission.

It was the first time the public were given the opportunity to exercise
their political rights to determine whether they accept or do not
accept the draft constitution of the Constitution Drafting Assembly.

The Constitution was accepted by 56.69 percent of voters and was
accordingly promulgated as the Constitution of the Kingdom of Thailand,

B.E. 2550 (2007) since 24 August 2007.

The Constitution of the Kingdom of Thailand, B.E. 2550 (2007) was

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the country’s 18 constitution drafted by 35 members of the Constitution
Drafting Committee. The draft constitution was proposed to the Constitution
Drafting Assembly chaired by Associate Professor Noranit Setabutr for

the consent before it proceeded to the referendum process.

The drafting process of the 2007 Constitution was different from
that of the 1997 Constitution as the drafting of the 2007 Constitution had

to conform to the 2006 Interim Constitution. In addition, in 2007, the
Constitution Drafting Assembly and the Constitution Drafting Committee

aimed to fix the weaknesses of the 1997 Constitution which were found
to generate a number of problems to the Thai political system, i.e. the
problem of majority rule where the parliament was absolutely ruled by

the majority party leading to a lack of checks and balances between the
legislatures and the executives, and the problem of interference with the

use of independent organization powers, e.g. the Constitutional Court
and the Election Commission (Somkid Lertpaitoon)

The 2007 Constitution still maintained the Election Commission
in Chapter 11: Organs under the Constitution, which was divided into