ONLY the wildest optimists still believe that Thailand’s military junta, which seized power in a coup last year, intends to step down soon. A farce that played out in the Parliament House in Bangkok on September 6th has made that even plainer. In a televised vote following a cheesy group photo, a junta-backed National Reform Council voted to abandon a proposed new constitution which a junta-backed set of drafters had spent ten months drawing up. The decision starts a new drafting process, which will take another seven months at least. There is little chance of fresh elections until at least 2017, and possibly long after that.