The vote will pave the way for a general election in 2017, but requires future governments to rule on the military’s terms.
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With 94% of ballots counted, 61.4% voted in favor and 38.6% voted against the draft constitution, which could give extra powers to the military.
The Election Commission said so far, 62 per cent of the country voted for the charter while 37.9 per cent rejected it.
Potchana Surapitic, 53, who voted for the constitution in Bangkok, said she was convinced the military’s promise to hold full elections next year was the country’s best chance for stability.
Leaders of the latest coup say sometimes violent political conflict made the country ungovernable and that military rule was necessary to bring stability. Official results will be released Wednesday.
Before the coup, just over half of the upper house seats were directly elected and the rest were appointed.
Amnesty International’s regional deputy director, Josef Benedict, said the climate ahead of Sunday’s vote was chilling.
Almost 58 percent of Thais agreed to give 250 senators picked by the junta, or the National Council for Peace and Order, the power to elect a prime minister along with 500 elected members of the House of Representatives while 42 percent voted against it. The referendum is likely to be a judgement day in Thai politics.
One clause in the draft constitution would allow an unelected prime minister to take power in the event of a political crisis – which is exactly what happened when Thailand’s army chief Prayuth Chan-ocha, now prime minister, took power in 2014.
Thailand has had a decade of fractured politics and instability that have sometimes spilled over into violence on the streets.
Thailand’s Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha talks to reporters after casting his vote in a referendum on a new constitution at a polling station in Bangkok, Thailand, Sunday, Aug. 7, 2016.
According to reports, former premier Thaksin Shinawatra on Thursday commented on the draft, saying “The drafters. created a constitution for the “continuity” of the absolute power of the present coup makers to continue even after the new constitution is proclaimed”.
The ban on campaigning has not stopped the junta from deploying thousands of military cadets to carry a message to Thailand’s 50 million eligible voters encouraging them to participate in the referendum.
“Far from being the key step toward the achievement of what the NCPO has termed ‘full and sustainable democracy, ‘ the draft charter creates undemocratic institutions, weakens the power of future elected governments, and is likely to fuel political instability”, the worldwide rights consortium FIDH said in a report August 3, referring to the junta’s official name, the National Council for Peace and Order. While the future prime minister need not come from an election, the future elected government will have to abide by a “national strategy plan”, or risk being impeached.
But others believe the new constitution has a different aim: to weaken allies of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, the central figure in the roiling of Thai politics.
The vote comes against the back-drop of concern about the health of King Bhumibol Adulyadej, 88.
Mr Shinawtra was deposed in a coup in 2006 following protests by “yellow shirts”, who accused him of corruption. He has lived overseas since 2008 to avoid prison for a corruption conviction that he says was politically motivated.
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His sister Yingluck Shinawatra was also forced from the Prime Minister’s office ahead of the coup in 2014.
