Assoc Prof Nantana Nantavaropas has made headlines after accusing many of her fellow Senate members of collaborating with a political party to dominate the Upper House.
According to the Constitution, the Senate is meant to consist of independent experts, but in practice it is thought to be dominated by a majority aligned with the coalition Bhumjaithai Party.
Nantana’s campaign has gained strong backing from pro-democracy activists. However, her challenging statements have also triggered a backlash from powerful quarters.
The 62-year-old is renowned for her eloquence, honed over years of appearances in televised political debates before becoming a media academic and dean of Krirk University’s Political Communication College.
As one of 45 women senators in the 200-member Upper House, she is a familiar media figure and never shy about responding to questions from reporters.
Block-vote accusation
Nantana lost her bid for the Senate presidency during the vote at its inaugural meeting in July. She received only 19 votes against 159 for Mongkol Surasajja, a former governor of Bhumjaithai’s political heartland, Buri Ram.
Nantana said Mongkol had benefitted from block voting by politically affiliated senators.
She later accused the alleged political faction of the same domineering tactic when it came to selecting heads of the Upper House’s 21 standing committees.
Only one independent senator – Angkhana Neelapaijit – managed to secure a post as committee chair, becoming head of the senatorial panel on political development, public participation and human rights.
The remaining posts went to senators with reported links to Bhumjaithai, the second-largest partner in the ruling coalition.
Angkhana, an award-winning human rights activist, gained the chair position in a stroke of luck after being tied with Samut Sakhon governor Weerasak Wijitsaengsri in a vote by the panel’s 18 members. The two agreed to settle the contest by drawing lots, and Weerasak came up with the short straw.
Nantana and Angkhana are prominent voices among the 30 self-declared independent senators. However, critics claim they often take the same positions as the opposition People’s Party, successor to the disbanded Move Forward Party.
Coming under fire
Nantana first came under fire last month after complaining she had been unjustly denied a seat on the political development committee. She argued that her expertise in human rights and political communication had been overlooked in favour of a vendor
Though she mentioned no name, her comment was clearly aimed at Senator Daeng Kongma, who made the cut instead of her for the 18-member panel.
“I have been working on political development for a long time, but I lost out to a pork vendor," Nantana said, emphasising that senators’ professional backgrounds should be the top criterion in selecting committee members.
She had to settle instead for a seat on the committee on education, science, research and innovation.
Facing a barrage of accusations that she had bullied the pork vendor-turned-senator, Nantana dismissed the criticism, stating that she had never looked down on people from different backgrounds. She insisted that her stance was based on the principle of "putting the right person in the right job".
‘Political manipulation’
Last week, Nantana reiterated her claims of political intervention, this time alleging a block vote by senators to derail a constitutional amendment bill to make it easier to write a new charter.
The bill, aimed at removing the charter’s “double-majority” requirement – 50% turnout and a minimum 50% majority to pass a referendum on a new constitution – had been overwhelmingly approved by the House of Representatives.
However, the Upper House voted 164-21 to retain the double-majority requirement.
Nantana suggested that political powers had manipulated the vote, echoing suspicions that the result had been engineered to align with Bhumjaithai’s stance. Bhumjaithai leader Anutin Charnvirakul insisted his party had nothing to do with the vote’s outcome.
Academic background
Born on August 15, 1962, Nantana earned a bachelor’s degree in history, followed by a master’s in political science, and a doctorate in political communications, all from Thammasat University in Bangkok.
She went on to pioneer political communications as an academic field in Thailand, playing a key role in founding Krirk University’s Political Communication College in 2005. She resigned as dean of the college earlier this year to contest the senatorial election.
