BANGKOK — Thailand’s military government insists the army will not turn against the ruling junta and is warning pro-election civilians to stop trying to split the regime, smear it with corruption charges or pursue street protests in support of greater democracy.
The escalating confrontations in a key U.S. ally threaten Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha’s widely rumored plan to manipulate a postelection parliament to extend his stay in power, which began when he led a bloodless 2014 military coup.
“I am not interested in dragging things out,” Mr. Prayuth said last week in response to renewed fears that he would again delay the election because his popularity is falling.
Small but undaunted anti-junta demonstrations have again appeared in Bangkok’s congested, sweltering streets, as the nation remains transfixed by the question of whether national elections promised by early next year will take place.
The latest satirical attacks involve donning paper Pinocchio face masks resembling Mr. Prayuth with elongated noses to suggest they do not believe his statements.
They also demand that the armed forces stop supporting the regime.
But “the army is part of the junta,” said Defense Minister Prawit Wongsuwan, a retired army general.
The U.S.-trained army will not separate from the regime’s governing body, known as the National Council for Peace and Order, said Mr. Prawit, a member of the council.
Air force Commander Jom Rungsawang agreed. “It is unlikely that armed forces’ commanders would step down from being NCPO members,” he said.
The National Council for Peace and Order includes the heads of the air force, navy, army and police, plus technocrats, wealthy royalists and conservatives.
The two council officials were speaking after hundreds of pro-election students and activists marched on March 24 from Bangkok’s prestigious and politically active Thammasat University to the army’s headquarters, chanting slogans such as “Junta, get out,” “Down with the dictators” and “Elections this year.”
Government officials say the size of the demonstration betrays a lack of popular support for a confrontation over the pace of democratization.
“Only 100 or so protesters came,” Mr. Prawit said.
He expressed displeasure with the Democracy Restoration Group and Start Up People — the two experienced student-led organizations that led the march.
But the protest leaders are showing an increasing willingness to speak out despite the junta’s record of cracking down on critics.
“What I want to see first is the NCPO in jail,” Rangsiman Rome, a Democracy Restoration Group leader, told the Bangkok Post in an interview this week. “You have to realize that this is a broken country. It is not livable.”
The two allied groups plan bigger rallies next month, targeting especially May 22 to mark the coup’s fourth anniversary.
Also attracting attention is the new Future Forward Party of Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit, an auto industry magnate who has attracted favorable media coverage as a figure who transcends the long struggle between conservative, royalist parties and more populist civilian factions.
Corruption scandals
The junta’s grip on power remains strong, but it has been dented by corruption scandals that have received wide play. Mr. Prawit, meanwhile, continues to deny wrongdoing after revelations that he had compiled a collection 22 luxury wristwatches totaling more than $1 million — without officially declaring them as assets.
Dubbed by skeptical Thais as “General Bling,” he told an ongoing corruption investigation that a now-dead billionaire friend loaned him the wristwatches to wear at public events.
“I am a victim used by the opposite side to hit the prime minister in the leg,” Mr. Prawit said over the weekend, claiming the wristwatch scandal is a plot to destabilize his lifelong ally Mr. Prayuth.
Pro-election activists and politicians say the accusations of corruption by various junta officials and supporters are symptoms of the military government’s hypocrisy and failure to restore orderly government after a string of divisive civilian-led governments.
Mr. Prayuth led the coup when he was army chief, declaring that only he could end corruption that plagued elected civilian governments. Analysts say the junta’s justifications for staying in power are wearing thin.
“More Thai people are sick and tired of [Mr. Prayuth’s] government than at any time since the military coup in May 2014, but not enough are willing to stand up and stare down the military regime,” said Thitinan Pongsudhirak, the director of Chulalongkorn University’s Institute of Security and International Studies.
“Corruption and graft will lead to crises and more coups. It is a familiar and vicious cycle,” Mr. Thitinan said.
Joshua Kurlantzick, a senior fellow at the U.S. Council on Foreign Relations, wrote in a recent blog post that the junta is reluctant to risk an election because former civilian leaders could stage a comeback.
“They also possibly hope to create a situation that would allow [Mr. Prayuth] to become prime minister, chosen by a deadlocked and factionalized parliament that then turns to him to keep running the country,” he wrote last week.
But stepping down may be just as perilous for the prime minister as trying to hold on to power.
Mr. Prayuth “cannot afford to leave the corridors of power too soon, or he could become the subject of vengeful acts by his political opponents, pundits say,” the Bangkok Post reported on Saturday.
Many Thais assume that Mr. Prayuth is conspiring to extend his control of the election — now planned for February — by using a recent law that allows a hung parliament to appoint an unelected person as prime minister.
Stung by the accusation, Mr. Prayuth warned that the deadly street insurrections that crippled this Buddhist-majority Southeast Asian nation before his coup could return if pro-democracy demonstrators continually denounce his regime.
Political chaos could delay the election indefinitely.
Mr. Prayuth is also concerned that two fugitive civilian prime ministers — whom he helped topple in separate military coups — are still immensely popular and their candidates could sweep the polls.
The former prime ministers, billionaire Thaksin Shinawatra and his sister Yingluck, were recently in Japan on an international tour while dodging prison sentences for offenses committed during their administrations.
After a 2006 coup in which Mr. Prayuth participated, Mr. Thaksin fled Thailand in 2008 just before a court convicted him of financial conflict of interest and sentenced him to two years in prison.
Ms. Yingluck then led a coalition to victory in a 2011 election but was forced out in 2014 by the Constitutional Court two weeks before her remaining colleagues were ousted by Mr. Prayuth’s coup.
She fled Thailand days before being sentenced on a conviction for negligence while overseeing a rice subsidy program during her time in office.
Candidates running for the siblings’ Pheu Thai (“For Thais”) party “should be able to lead the party to another landslide victory,” Mr. Thaksin said in Japan on March 29, knowing it would rile the regime. The brother-sister pair posed for a smiling selfie in Japan and arranged for the photo to be posted on Mr. Thaksin’s Thailand-based son’s Facebook page.
Junta officials dismiss the notion that the exiled civilian leaders pose a threat to their hold on power.
“If you want to believe [Thaksin], feel free to, but I do not,” Mr. Prawit said.
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