The attempt to adopt a mixed-member proportional election system ...

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He added that they did not need a vote on the proportionality issue, because the majority
already was in favor of proportional voting. In the quote above, the phrase “instead
of the Party list” suggested that, contrary to the fundamental system change that
the proponents of MMP had in mind, proportionality would only apply to the previously
100 “party-list” MPs, and precisely not to the entire election system. What the
CDC members voted for afterwards was indeed nothing more than a modified partylist
system, which was merely re-labeled as “proportional voting.” At this point of the
struggle about an election system change, the CDC’s decision kept the mixed-member
majoritarian system (MMM) of the 1997 constitution intact, which substantially differed
from Krirkkiat’s proposal of a mixed-member proportional system (MMP).
Thus, contrary to what the CDC’s chairperson assumed, the decision was not simply
about the number of MPs in the two categories—constituency, and list. Rather, the
CDC members were called on to decide between two fundamentally different options
for the country’s future election system. However, the way the discussion was conducted
obscured the choices by the mixed-up usage of the term “proportional system.”
In this way, the choice seemed to be merely whether the ratio of constituency and list
MPs should be 320 to 80 or 200 to 200. Ironically, although Prasong stated that he
wanted to decide about “the principle” first, this principle was indeed ignored by the
way the vote was framed. One could perhaps have seen the two different ratios as indicating
the alternative of MMM and MMP, as I did when I read the minutes. Yet, in
the meeting itself, the choice situation was not framed in this straightforward way, and
“the principle” merely referred to the re-labeling of the party list as “proportional voting.”
As it turned out, 21 CDC members voted for a 320 to 80 split of constituency
and regional party-list MPs, denoting (not only in my view) an MMM system. Only
nine members were in favor of Krirkkiat’s 200 to 200 model, which (not only in my
view) stood for MMP. Chairperson Prasong summarized this decision with the words,
This means 320/80 has 21 votes, while 200/200 has nine votes. Therefore,
the meeting resolves that there will be 320 [MPs] in the constituency elections
and 80 in the proportional [election]. I think that we can talk about
the details later. (CDC 26:19)
This summary sounded rather like the 1997-style segmented or parallel system, applying
two different election principles separately to two different sets of candidates, and