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Thailand's post-coup general election will take place in December
even if voters reject a draft constitution in a referendum next
month, coup leader General Sonthi Boonyaratglin said yesterday.
"Elections will definitely be held at the end of this year no
matter what happens to the charter in the August 19 referendum,"
Sonthi, who ousted elected prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra last
year, told a Bangkok radio station.
Thaksin, who lives in exile in London, has urged voters to
reject the military-sponsored draft charter, calling it "fruit of
the poisonous tree" and a "step back" for democracy.
"If voters reject the 2007 constitution, and the (military) is
forced to use the constitution that they already tore up, that is
going to be something," Thaksin told the Financial Times in an
interview published on Monday. "Democracy will come back to
Thailand."
If the charter were rejected, Sonthi said, the 1997 "People's
Constitution" would be amended and used for an election the
military-appointed government has promised for December 16 or
23.
Meanwhile, Thailand's junta leader has ordered the nation's
700,000 security officers to encourage people to vote in a
constitutional referendum next month, officials said yesterday.
General Sonthi has ordered members of the armed services and the
counter-insurgency Internal Security Operations Command (ISOC) to
join the government's campaign urging voters to take part, a
spokesman said.
"Basically, we educate them about the new charter, partly to
prevent them from being misled by others about the constitution,"
ISOC spokesman Colonel Thanathip Sawangsang said.
Thanathip insisted the military was not trying to convince
people to approve the charter, but simply to educate them about
it.
"What worries the military leaders is that people seem to have a
low level of interest in voting on the constitution," Thanathip
said.
"We want to see the election process be democratic as possible,"
he added.
An army spokeswoman confirmed that Sonthi, who leads the army as
well as the ISOC, had ordered members of the armed forces to
"educate" voters.
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