The Illegal Prime Minister?

You heard it before: There are some controversies around our new prime minister, Samak Sundaravej.

We’re not minding his tongue. His tongue is clearly not as honey-coated as Chuan Leekpai’s. Maybe there’s even a chance in this un-Chuan-ness: Some serious tongue-blunders by His Excellency Samak – and he becomes an intolerability.

But there is more to it: Strictly by the constitution Samak is not allowed to become prime minister.

According to the constitution a person who has been sentenced is not allowed to become a minister.

Samak is on probation for that old defamation suit. But here’s the problem: The constitution allows interpretation.

It contains two stipulations: If you have been given a sentence, even though the sentence is probational, you have not the status to become a minister.

With the exception if the offense is a minor incident or negligence.

And here’s the problem: Even though defamation and negligence are two completely different beasts, in Thai language they’re not.

Defamation in Thai means “minh pramand”, neglicence “pramand”.

And because in Thai Samak’s minh pramand looks like the much more benign pramand, the new rulers strongly feel that Samak’s washes his hands of it.

There was a story about this recently in the Thai newspaper Naew Nah, written by a lawyer, but the theme hasn’t been picked up by the mainstream media.

Looks like we gonna get an illegal prime minister.

“I don’t think Samak is eligible,” a highly placed source told absolutelyBangkok.com. “It’s quite clear in the constitution.”

Problem though being: That was stipulated in the widely distributed draft constitution.

The final document, which is not that widely available yet, included defamation as one of the exceptions.

Only chance being to have Samak’s premiership being cancelled: If the Appeals Court confirms the sentence of the lower court.