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. When the generals launched their bloodless coup during political unrest in May 2014 they promised to "bring happiness back to Thailand". The draft constitutional framework was supposed to usher that in. Its authors, doing the junta's bidding, came up with a set of rules which allowed for elections but neutered the victors. The draft seemed designed to produce weak governing coalitions able to be bossed about by higher powers. It would have introduced a largely appointed senate. And it removed a requirement that the prime minister be elected.
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