The stench

A couple of days ago, the Bangkok Post included a report that is a timely reminder that the junta’s 2017 constitution is a political defense of royalism and the role of the military in opposing meaningful and progressive political reform. It is a stench that hangs over the country.

The report is of the “defence permanent secretary and chiefs of the navy and the air force report[ing] for duty as newly appointed senators on Monday.” We are told:

Gen Worakiat Rattananont, Adm Somprasong Nilsamai and ACM Napadej Dhuphtemiya took the oath of office before starting their jobs, following the announcement of their appointments by Senate Speaker Pornpetch Wichitcholchai.

As the Post helpfully points out, the junta’s constitution mandates that”six of the Senate seats are reserved for the supreme commander, the army, navy and air force chiefs, the defence permanent secretary and the national police chief.”

This is just one aspect of the rigged constitution that was meant to ensure that the junta’s personnel, the coup makers of 2014, continued in power.

The swill that is the senate is stacked with scores of military and former military figures, along with a bunch of royalists and junta toadies.

Why anyone could even consider Thailand’s political system a crippled democracy is beyond us. As far as we can tell, the current government is now in a minority, with several Palang Pracharath MPs banned from parliament, but it just plows on.