Charan: Let's come together in a consultative mode. It's not possible to write a perfect constitution. This new constitution draft started off badly because the origin was the Sept 19 coup. The 1997 charter was drawn up under a democratic atmosphere. But I can assure you that this constitution drafting committee doesn't come under the dictate of the coup leaders. We went out to obtain the people's opinions as comprehensively as possible.

We wrote the first draft and distributed it to all provinces to get feedback from all segments of society. We got lots of dissident views and also positive responses.

The first major point of consensus was that the next prime minister must be an elected MP -- not an "outsider."

The second draft from the 30-member subcommitte was submitted to the 100-member drafting committee. The debate was wide-ranging. There were no bloc votes. Every group of members had both wins and losses on their positions. None of them had a sweeping string of victories.

I am sure that the third draft is based on popular sentiments.

The main purpose of our mission wasn't to draw up a perfect legal document. The main point was to base our deliberations on the 1997 constitution. The good points we kept. The weak parts we tried to amend and improve upon.

The final draft therefore wasn't something the drafting committee initiated on their own. It was drawn from the basic points of the 1997 constitution.

The 1997 constitution wanted to guarantee a strong ,stable government. But what happened was we got a "too strong a government" -- so strong that the legislative branch couldn't launch a no-confidence debate. That's because there was a two-fifths minimum requirement for the MPs to mount a no-confidence debate against the government.

The much-feared "parliamentary dictatorship" became a problem. In the new draft, we reduced that to one-fifth or 96 MPs.

What if the opposition had only 80 seats? The draft gives the power, after two years, to the opposition to raise censure motions against the government.

The second main point is the big drawback of the 1997 constitution. It allowed the political party or parties with majority votes in parliament to influence the selection of members of independent agencies. As a result, there was a clear lack of checks and balances in the political arena.  That's why we were hit with a political crisis.

In the new draft, we have tried to correct that drawback by making sure that political interference in this regarded would be reduced to the minimum.

The third point. The missing part in the 1997 constitution was how to effectively incorporate integrity and ethics in politics. As a result, politicians resorted to the law rather than ethics and integrity.