BANGKOK - Thailand's junta won approval from the king Tuesday for an interim constitution mapping out year-long political reforms expected to curb the influence of fugitive ex-premier Thaksin Shinawatra.
It was the first time the revered but ailing King Bhumibol Adulyadej, 86, had granted an audience to coup leader General Prayut Chan-O-Cha since the military seized power two months ago.
The document, published online late Tuesday, offers an amnesty from prosecution to the generals who seized power in the May coup. It also hands the junta sweeping - if vaguely-defined - "national security" powers and allows them to rule in parallel with a national assembly appointed by the king on the advice of the military.
Membership of that assembly will be strictly controlled, with many of the main players in Thailand's turbulent politics seemingly barred by a clause prohibiting anyone who held "a position in any political party in the past three years".
The military will further deepen its grip on power with a 250-strong council which it will hand-pick and charge with recommending sweeping reforms.
Prayut has said the overhaul of the political system will be complete once a new, permanent charter is endorsed, opening the way for fresh elections.
But he has ruled out holding elections until around October 2015, despite appeals from the United States and the European Union for a return to a democratic path.
The May coup was the latest chapter in a long-running political crisis broadly pitting Thaksin's billionaire family and its supporters against a royalist establishment backed by parts of the military and judiciary.
"The goal is to utterly destroy the influence of Thaksin," said Paul Chambers, director of research at the Institute of Southeast Asian Affairs in Chiang Mai.
"But a military government and new reactionary constitution will instead tend to build sympathy and more support for Thaksin from rural and impoverished Thais." - AFP
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