BANGKOK : Thailand will hold a referendum in early July on whether to amend a military-backed constitution, which was approved by voters less than a year ago, Premier Samak Sundaravej announced on Wednesday.

Voters would not be asked to approve the amendments - only to decide whether the constitution should be changed, Samak told reporters.

The referendum on changing the constitution would come less than 11 months after voters approved the current charter, which was drafted by a military-appointed panel following the 2006 coup against former premier Thaksin Shinawatra.

Samak's drive to amend the charter has proved deeply divisive among Thailand's political elite, raising fears that the military could stage a new coup to prevent any constitutional changes.

"The referendum will be on whether to amend or not to amend. I will seek a two billion baht (63 million dollar) budget for the referendum, which will bring satisfaction to the Thai people and end the divisiveness in our country," Samak said.

"There will be 45 days for campaigning, so the referendum would take place in early July," he said. "If people are opposed to amending the constitution, then there is no need to amend it."

Samak had originally proposed amending only a few key clauses in the constitution, notably the articles allowing courts to dissolve political parties over election fraud.

But his People Power Party now says it would reinstate almost all of the 1997 constitution that was scrapped by the military following the coup against Thaksin.

That constitution was drafted after years of consultations with the Thai public. The so-called "People's Constitution" had been hailed as the most democratic basic law ever seen in the kingdom.

Thitinan Pongsudhirak, a political analyst at Bangkok's Chulalongkorn University, said the referendum was Samak's strategy for cooling confrontation with his government's critics and heading off the threat of any street protests.

"The referendum is a release valve and allows the Samak government to take some pressure off," Thitinan said. "Otherwise it will reach a dead end. It's a concession from Samak to avert confrontation."

He said the amendments themselves would not trigger a coup, but that if tensions lingered and the parliamentary process appeared blocked, the resulting "instability provides a pretext for the military to step in." - AFP/de