Parliament was disrupted when a scuffle over controversial proposals to change the way senators are selected broke out between Democrat Party MPs and House speaker Somsak Kiatsuranont on Tuesday.
Parliamentary police officers struggle to evict a Democrat Party MP from the chamber on Tuesday, after an altercation between MPs and the House speaker delayed a debate on charter change for several hours. (Photo by Chanat Katanyu)
The incident delayed debates on the second reading of a bill proposing changes to the way that senators are selected by several hours.
The joint sitting of parliament began at 9.30am on Tuesday. But the Democrats demanded that Senate Speaker Nikom Waiyarachpanich step down from chairing the session, on the grounds that he lacked the necessary neutrality to oversee the debate, because he supports proposed changes to the way the Senate is made up.
Currently, an elected senator from every province and 73 hand-picked representatives make up the Senate. Under proposed changes to legislation, the number of senators would be increased from the current figure of 150 to 200, and all would be elected. The families of MPs and former MPs would also be eligible to run for senator posts.
The Pheu Thai Party and a group of elected senators are pushing for the end to the practice of appointing senators, because they say it goes against democratic principles. The bill to change the Senate composition was orchestrated by Samart Kaewmeechai, a Pheu Thai MP for Chiang Rai province.
Tensions brewed when Mr Somsak took over as chairman of the meeting and evicted some Democrat Party MPs out of the chamber for booing Mr Samart.
After senators and MPs spent two hours discussing possible changes to the controversial amendment plans, Mr Somsak told them he would allow one more MP and another senator to debate on the issue before calling a vote, citing time restraints.
However, opposition MPs said the House Speaker should allocate time to all 57 parliamentarians, mostly Democrat MPs and appointed senators, who wanted to propose changes to the amendment plans, and criticised him for limiting the rights of individual parliamentarians.
Mr Somsak responded by saying that the meeting would not finish on schedule if he allowed everyone to debate, therefore he needed to exercise his power as speaker to call the vote.
"All MPs should behave. This is parliament," he said.
The House voted 339 out of 378 to dismiss the 57 parliamentarians' proposals to change the senator selection amendment, which prompted a group of opposition MPs to boo again and stand up in protest against Mr Somsak.
The group, which included Phatthalung MP Nipit Intharasombat, Uthai Thani MP Kuldej Puapattanakul and party-list MP Watchara Petchthong among others, shouted "slave parliament" and "Thaksin's servant" at Mr Somsak.
The house speaker told them to sit down and maintain order several times but failed to contain the situation, so ordered parliamentary police officers to take the MPs out of the chamber.
Democrat MPs then tried to prevent about a dozen policemen from dragging their colleagues out of parliament. No punches were thrown, but there was plenty of pushing and wrangling, which mainly involved Mr Nipit, Mr Kuldej and Surat Thani MP Thani Thaugsuban and the officers.
Two female Democrat MPs were heard screaming as male policemen approached them to usher them out of the chamber. Rak Thailand Party leader Chuvit Kamolvisit walked around and recorded the whole incident.
