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

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29 Shortly after the Thai-language draft constitution had been published, an Englishlanguage
translation was circulated, though without attribution (Draft Constitution…
2007). The important parts of article 92 were translated as follows.
“Section 92: Election of members of the House of Representatives under Section 91
shall be carried out as follows:
(1) Three hundred and twenty members of the House of Representatives shall come
from election held under constituency basis. …
(2) Eighty members of the House of Representatives shall come through election held
under proportional basis. There shall be four electoral zones, each of which shall have
equal numbers of inhabitants and adjoining one another. Each electoral zone shall
have 20 members of the House of Representatives by calculating the ratio [proportion]
of the number of members of the House of Representatives from the vote ratio
[proportion] of the political party list …”
The final version of (now) article 93 says, “Section 93. The House of Representatives
consists of four hundred and eighty members, four hundred of whom are from the
election on a constituency basis and eighty of whom are from the election on a proportional
representation basis” (Constitution of the Kingdom of Thailand, B.E. 2550
[2007]).
30
คณะกรรมาธิการยกร่างรัฐธรรมนูญ (April 26, 2007, p. 58f).
31 Ibid.
32 He was the secretary general of the Council of State, the government’s legal advisory
body.
33 Ibid., p. 94. Komsan seemed to have indicated this design element on page 80 already.
This corresponded to the German MMP system, in which important figures of
political parties might run in a constituency, but also on the party list. The purpose
was to make sure that important political personnel made it to the House. These politicians
were “secured” (abgesichert in German) on the party list.
34 This could be done by abolishing the list altogether, by reducing the number of party-list
MPs, by regionalizing the lists, by abolishing the threshold, or by allowing constituency
MPs to become ministers.
35 For his credentials as an arch-foe of Thaksin, see Chermsak’s book series เจิมศักดิ
(2546, 2547 a-c, 2549 a and b, and 2551).
36 CDC 38:76, including the citations. Chermsak reiterated this element ibid., p. 148.
Later in the meeting, Krirkkiat added one more feature that was similar to the German
system. He defended the five-percent threshold by saying that it was designed to prevent
“too many small parties” from entering the House. However, their proposal said
five percent or one constituency MP (as in Germany). For example, if a party received
only two percent of the vote, but one constituency MP, then this party would also be
included in the calculation of the proportional seat claim (ibid., p. 120). In the 2005
elections, this would have benefited the Mahachon Party. Earlier, Krirkkiat seemed to
have been in favor of a two-percent threshold.
37 This was quite possible, because the interests and working contexts of PL MPs and
constituency MPs were often quite different. I add “often” here, because a number of
PL MPs had previously been constituency MPs, and moved up to the list to make way
for family members to become constituency MPs. As for so many other areas of the