Thai elections in 2017?

18 Sep 2015  2034 | World Travel News

BANGKOK  Thailand’s junta Wednesday said elections are unlikely to take place before June 2017 in the latest delay to the restoration of democracy since the military seized power last year.
The kingdom’s generals had initially promised to return power to civilians within 18 months of the May 2014 coup as they set about rewriting the country’s constitution.
That date was further pushed back to early 2016 and then scuppered entirely, earlier this month, when a military appointed council rejected the junta’s own draft constitution.
At a briefing for foreign diplomats in Bangkok on Wednesday Deputy Prime Minister, Wissanu Krea-ngam, said the process of drafting a new constitution was expected to take 20 months.
inside no 7 General Prayut Chan-O-Cha
General Prayut Chan-O-Cha
“Hopefully in June 2017 we will have the general election. And not long, one month after that, we will have the new elected government,” he said.
If the new election date is met, General Prayut Chan-O-Cha’s junta will have spent more time in power than any other military government in Thailand since 1969.
Foreign Minister, Don Pramudwinai, told reporters Prayut had asked his appointees to try and speed up the new charter drafting process.
“The prime minister doesn’t want to stay on longer, he even asked for the shortening of the whole process,” he said.
The army seized power from an elected government in May last year, promising to calm the country after years of street protests and acrimony by political rivals.
The junta has said a new charter — Thailand’s 20th since it abandoned absolute monarchy in 1932 — holds the key to bridging those divides before democratic elections can be restored, provisionally in mid-late 2016.
© 1994-2015 Agence France-Presse

sourced:ttrweekly.com 

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