The King Bhumibol Adulyadej of Thailand has signed a royal command, appointing 100 prominent persons as members of the Constitution Drafting Assembly (CDA), the state-run Thai News Agency reported Tuesday.

The new 100-strong CDA has been selected by the Council for National Security (CNS), the council of military coup leaders, from 200 nominees selected by the 1,982 members of the National People's Assembly (NPA) from among themselves.

The names of the Constitution writers were officially announced. Among them are well-known academics, bureaucrats, and senior judges,as well as former politicians.

Ankhana Neelapaijit, wife of Somchai Neelapaijit, the Muslim human rights lawyer who went missing in March 2004, was among those appointed to the assembly.

Sonthi Boonyaratkalin, army chief and CNS chairman, earlier reaffirmed that the criteria for selecting the constitution drafters was transparent, and emphasis was placed upon the diversity of careers and qualities represented.

According to the procedures, after the 100 CDA members are in place, they will name 25 charter writers from themselves while the CNS will add another 10 persons to those to form a core-drafting panel.

Following the coup d'etat toppling the Thaksin administration on September 19, the military leaders pledged that drafting the new constitution would be completed within about six months and that a general election would be held, tentatively in October 2007.

Source: Xinhua