Thailand's Reluctant Leader Prolongs His Grip On Power

[cavanami]

Thailand's reluctant ( )leader prolongs his grip on power

 

http://news.yahoo.com/thailands-reluctant-leader-prolongs-grip-power-044517995.html

 

Need this guy in W's comedy troop!

 

He repeatedly presents himself as a reluctant

leader, and yet Thailand's Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha is now on track to become his country's longest-ruling strongman since the 1970s.

 

Prayuth seized power in May 2014 to, as he put it, rescue his turmoil-racked nation and "return happiness to the people". :rotl: :rotl:

 

But the scuttling of a draft constitution this month has prolonged military rule and cast further doubts on the former army chief's professed allergy to high office.

 

It could also erode rather than consolidate Prayuth's power, say experts, as public discontent grows with a junta that has curbed basic freedoms and failed to energize the economy.

 

Prayuth, who arrives in New York this week to speak at the U.N. General Assembly, toppled the remnants of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra's elected government weeks after a court removed her. The coup halted months of often violent street protests.

 

He imposed martial law, cowed political opponents and set about mending what he called "a flawed democratic system".

 

Martial law was replaced in April by a sweeping security clause that politicians, scholars and human rights monitors said granted Prayuth unchecked power....