Junta: Over 99% of Thais satisfied with its performance

BANGKOK

Hours after Thailand’s government announced that more than 99 percent of Thais are satisfied with the junta’s post-coup performance, the junta leader-cum-prime minister reaffirmed Wednesday that the military would hand back power in 2017.

After a cabinet meeting Tuesday, a government spokesperson revealed that a poll by the National Statistic Office also found that 98.9 percent of respondents expressed confidence in the efforts undertaken by the military government after the 2014 coup, the Bangkok Post reported.

In response to which projects they considered the most satisfactory, 99.9 percent reportedly approved of measures to curb lottery ticket prices to 80 baht ($2.22) and 99.5 percent of anti-narcotics operations.

The Pheu Thai Party of ousted premier Yingluck Shinawatra, however, also released a statement of what it says are the junta’s biggest failures, including the anti-graft drive’s alleged targeting of only politicians, the decrease in foreign investment and the decline in foreign confidence amid delays in a return to democracy.

The Post quoted Cherchai Tantisirin, a former MP from the party, as saying that the poll’s findings were not credible.

Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha assured during his year-end speech Wednesday that the transfer of power to elected officials would take place in 2017 barring any major obstacles.

He said the military government was drawing to a close the first stage of its roadmap and would begin implementing second stage reforms, including the declaration of a new constitution, before calling elections.

Chan-ocha also insisted that his government's crackdown on dissidents, which has recently intensified amid criticisms of a military-run park mired in corruption allegations, was in line with the law.

"They broke the law, they must be arrested," he said, referring to arrests in general. "Don't call me an abuser of human rights."

The comments come a day after police put out arrest warrants for 11 student activists accused of violating junta orders against conducting political assemblies of more than five people.

The students had been taken into custody earlier this month, before being released, for trying to organize a protest trip to the $20 million Ratchapakdi Park, featuring gigantic bronze-cast statues of Thai kings.

Since the junta overthrew the elected government in May 2014 citing the need to root out corruption and normalize a tense political situation, international human rights groups have denounced the arrests of hundreds of activists, politicians, journalists and academics.