Conflict, Legitimacy and Government Reform: Equitable Allocation of ...

64 KPI Congress XI
influential person were prosecuted on corruption charges and sentenced
to imprisonment under the frameworks of the 1997 Constitution.
The outcome of political conflicts that culminated in protests
against populist policies of Thaksin’s administration and opposition
against Pol.Col. Thaksin and political parties linked to him has
exacerbated and turned into numerous violent protests has convinced a
number of middle-class people to renounce the democratic parliamentary
system under one man, one vote principle which applies to election of
members of parliament and demand an increased number of appointed
MPs and senators. However, this proposal seems to wither away because
more and more people oppose this idea. I hope my speech today may
help shed light on this matter.
Once we can agree and decide that we should uphold a universal
democratic parliamentary system, we will be able to find ways to make
this system function effectively in Thailand.
However, we must keep two things in mind. First, we cannot
possibly shape up democracy overnight but we have to go through the
process of learning by doing and apply our cumulative learning from
experiences to improve basic institutions along the way. It may be done
through trial and error. That’s alright. Continuity of the system is critical
in this respect because it has positive reinforcement on the process of
learning by doing. Therefore, we must make the best effort to prevent a
military coup.
We must have an acceptable fair society, so we can have a peaceful
society. A political system that consists of a parliamentary system and
constitution that guarantees basic rights and liberties and sets out rules of
political gambits will provide us the best opportunities to achieve this
goal.