New Cabinet sworn in, ending rule by army junta
BANGKOK — Thailand’s new Cabinet was sworn in Tuesday, creating a nominally elected government after five years of military rule but keeping power in the hands of the same allies of the army.
King Maha Vajiralongkorn presided over the swearingin of the 36member Cabinet, during which they pledged their loyalty to the constitutional monarch.
“Every task has obstacles. Every mission faces problems,” he told them in brief remarks. “It is normal to take on work and solve problems so that the country can be run smoothly according to circumstances.” The Cabinet afterward regrouped at Government House for its first meeting.
Prayuth Chanocha, who as army commander seized power in a 2014 coup and then served as junta leader and prime minister, returns to serve again as prime minister. This time he was elected by a parliamentary vote after a March general election gave promilitary parties a majority. The junta, which had given itself almost unlimited powers without oversight, was dissolved with the inauguration of the new Cabinet.
The election was held under a new constitution and laws enacted by Prayuth’s junta aimed at disadvantaging established political parties. Critics say the vote was undemocratic and engineered to prolong rule by the military and its conservative allies.
The measures were seen as being directed particularly at the Pheu Thai party, which headed the government deposed in 2014. Pheu Thai, under various names changed for legal reasons, had won every national election since it was founded in 1998 by telecommunications tycoon Thaksin Shinawatra, who is despised by the country’s conservative base, which includes the military. Thaksin himself was overthrown as prime minister in a 2006 military coup.
Thaksin’s populist policies won him enormous support at the polls but also threatened the influence of traditional power holders, including the military.
After seizing power in 2014, Prayuth declared a war on money politics and socalled “influential persons,” including political power brokers with shady connections.
But in assembling a political machine, the Palang Pracharath Party that made him its candidate for prime minister recruited the same types of wheelerdealers and made alliances with some to attain a majority.
“This Cabinet either represents old wine in a new bottle,” said Paul Chambers, a political scientist at Naraesuan University in northern Thailand, referring to major posts held by former members of Prayuth’s military government, “or a product of a multiparty and multifactional balance of power.”
Thitinan Pongsudhirak, a professor of political science at Bangkok’s Chulalongkorn University, described the Cabinet as “dominated by patronage politics and paybacks,” including at least two members with questionable reputations who were recruited for their abilities to turn out the vote.