Parliament, “Angkana” sees the results of the election of the Senate Speaker and Vice President as not beyond expectations, indicating that it reflects the lack of independence of this group of senators, and is concerned that the people’s law will be overturned if the government does not agree.
Ms. Angkhana Neelapaijit, a member of the Senate from the New Generation Senators group, gave an interview after the vote to elect the Senate President and 1st and 2nd Vice Presidents in the first Senate meeting (first regular annual session) that the vote to elect the Senate President and Vice Presidents this time was not beyond expectations because if you look at the names of the President and the 3 Vice Presidents of the Senate, you will see that they were nominated by themselves and it was as expected.
Ms. Angkana continued that she was not surprised and was happy to be able to speak about what she wanted to say, including speaking on behalf of the people, such as important civic politics, freedom of expression,
and the law on citizen signatures, and what we, as the Senate, could do.
As for the scores, they are no different from their friends in the new generation of senators, no more than 20 points, and they do not affect their feelings because they have been through a lot. It is no different from selecting senators at the national level, where whoever has the highest score will be very high. As it was set to be like this, it depends on the person who sets the score whether they will lead forever or listen to outsiders or not. But personally, I am not worried, no matter where we are, we can work.
As for whether the unified majority of the Senate will affect their work, Ms. Angkana stated that she is looking to the future, such as laws that pass the parliament or laws that the government does not agree with, and she is worried that all the votes will go that way. However, one thing that is clearly seen today again is the ‘lack of independence’ because during the election, we knew to some extent that it was very str
ongly organized. However, today it has been shown whether the Senate is truly independent or not because it is unlikely that the votes would go to any one person so much that it makes it seem that those who received few votes are worthless.
Angkana reiterated that she never felt pressured, it was just that her work had become more difficult. However, in pushing forward important issues that we believe will benefit the people, which may have been impossible, at least we have done it. For anything that has not been done, we must explain to the people that we have done our best but it has not worked, because today has clearly shown that the Senate is not truly independent.
The reporter asked whether the votes of the new generation of senators would be linked to being orange senators. Ms. Angkana said that if you look, you will see that they were friends and disciples before. When they applied, more people applied, but many people fell out, leaving only a few people. But what makes her happy is that it lets her
know who is still standing with her. It is a good thing to evaluate herself in the future, whether she will do anything next or propose a law, she will have to work harder to talk to her fellow senators.
Ms. Angkana also said in closing that according to the law, the Senate must be independent. But what we saw today reflects that there is a tag team to lock the vote, leaving no space for the minority Senate. She also asked the Senate president and vice president to answer questions from society about this matter because we can no longer hide anything from society because what we have seen tells us that the independence of the Senate does not really exist.
Source: Thai News Agency