Voices of Thai people living outside the kingdom will be excluded from the public referendum on the junta-sponsored draft constitution.
Thai people who are in eligible age for participating in elections are not given the rights to participate in the 7 August 2016 referendum for the draft constitution, the BBC Thai reported.
Earlier, Wisanu Krue-ngam, the Deputy junta head, said that it is a waste of budget and time to allow Thai citizens living outside the country participating on the draft charter referendum because the authorities could not hand them the summary of the draft constitution.
The Deputy junta head added that the process to allow Thais living abroad to vote from outside the kingdom will be too complicated.
In the 2011 general election, about 147,000 out of roughly one million Thai people who lived overseas then registered at Thai Embassies and Consulates to participate in the 2011 election, which brought about Yingluck Shinawatra’s administration.
There is a online campaign on Chang.org to collect signatures from Thais who support overseas vote, but the campaig failed.
Duangta De Leroux, a Thai assistant nurse who has been living in France for 21 years told the BBC Thai in an interview “the government is wrong to slash the voices of Thai people living abroad although we work and always send money back to Thailand.”
Wongduen Laomongkonchaisri, an owner of a Thai restaurant in London who is living in the UK for the last 35 years told the BBC Thai “It’s alright, the government probably has their own reasons, although I regret that I won’t be able to vote. I still feel that I’m Thai and would like to ask Thai people in the country to execute their rights.”
According to Prof Peter John of the University College London, the UK citizens who are living outside the UK for more than 15 years will not be given the rights to participate in the UK’s elections, the BBC Thai reported.
Thai and foreign activists flash the symbolic three-fingered salute in front of a cinema in Paris in November 2014 against Gen Prayut Chan-o-cha, the junta leader and Prime Minister (file Photo)