High quality global journalism requires investment. Please share this article with others using the link below, do not cut & paste the article. See our Ts&Cs and Copyright Policy for more detail. Email ftsales.support@ft.com to buy additional rights. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/5df34086-e1c1-11e3-915b-00144feabdc0.html#ixzz3zyYklPIO
The junta’s spin is that it is the only institution with the authority to end a seemingly intractable and periodically deadly political fight between opposition forces aligned to the urban elite and a government backed by many rural Thais. On this argument, Gen Prayuth is a reluctant interventionist, approaching retirement, who in the end just lost patience with the uncompromising civilians. The more cynical view is that an army deeply embedded in the establishment is yet again toppling an elected, if severely tarnished, government that it does not like: Thailand’s crisis may have been spilling blood and damaging the country – but not on a scale that justified military intervention. Even on the more benign reading, the military has a huge, perhaps impossible, task ahead. Generals who have arbitrarily declared martial law and then ripped up the constitution are casting themselves as the overseers of reforms to deliver peace and democracy. Still more problematically, a military that has massacred protesters several times during crises – most recently just four years ago – is presenting itself as the honest broker in a deeply divided country.