Thailand gets stop-gap, post-coup charter

BANGKOK, Oct 1: Thailand's King Bhumibol Adulyadej endorsed a stop-gap constitution today which the army says will be in place until a new long-term charter is drawn up in around nine months after September's bloodless military coup.

As national television announced the charter, Government House staff were busy preparing for the swearing in of General Surayud Chulanont, a retired army commander-in-chief, as interim civilian prime minister, officials told Reuters.

''We have contacted General Surayud in preparation for today's ceremony,'' said a protocol official. Surayud, who is now a royal adviser, was due to arrive half an hour before the ceremony starts at 4.45 pm (1515 hrs IST), another government source said.

Although a career military man, Surayud, 63, has a reputation as a reformer who recognised the need to keep soldiers out of politics in a country which has now seen 18 coups in seven decades of democracy.

Despite promises not to interfere, doubts remain about the Council for Democratic Reform (CDR) -- as the coup leaders call themselves -- given that they are staying on as a Council for National Security with the power to fire the interim government.

''People respect him very highly, but it's not about him any more. It's not about Surayud as a person. It's all about the CDR,'' said one Bangkok-based human rights worker who asked not to be identified.

Having ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra on September 19 without a shot being fired, the coup leaders promised to hand power to a civilian government within two weeks, a deadline that expires on October 4.

9The interim charter guarantees basic human rights, installs a 36-member cabinet and sets up an assembly of 2,000 eminent persons who will in turn select a panel to write a new constitution, the announcement said. The 39-article document also enshrines the coup leaders as the Council for National Security (CNS), although they will also have authority over the appointment of the prime minister and other key positions, it said.

CALMING FEARS

Officials have tried to assuage worries about the army overshadowing the return to democracy, saying the authority to fire the government is largely hypothetical.

''It is a power that is in reserve. I don't think they foresee a situation to resort to it,'' senior Foreign Ministry official Krit Garnjana-Goonchorn said.

Coup leader General Sonthi Boonyaratglin told Reuters on Friday the CNS would play a role only in security matters, such as tackling an insurgency in the Muslim far south where more than 1,700 people have been killed since 2004.

''I can assure you it is impossible that we will control the government,'' Sonthi said in an interview at Army Headquarters.

''We will be the government's tool to keep peace.'' Sonthi said Thaksin, who won election landslides in 2001 and 2005 but is now living as an exile in London, should not return to Thailand as the ''domestic situation has not settled yet''.

Tanks and soldiers have remained on the streets of Bangkok since the coup, although there appears to have been widespread support for the army's action.

In one of the few signs of dissent, Thai newspaper websites reported yesterday that a taxi daubed with slogans saying ''Destroying the country'' and ''Die for the country'' rammed a tank in Bangkok yesterday.

The taxi was badly damaged and the driver taken to hospital with damaged ribs. The tank was unscathed.

REUTERS