FRIDAY, March 29, 2024
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Prayut show in full flow during the two-day Cabinet meeting

Prayut show in full flow during the two-day Cabinet meeting

“I’M NOT like those corrupt politicians. I’m not a politician. I’m only here to help end a political stalemate.” This is what Prime Minister General Prayut Chan-o-cha always says, trying to differentiate himself from the political class.

However, like “those politicians” that Prayut looks down on, the premier always manages to turn the spotlight on himself wherever he goes. 
His recent two-day trip to Nakhon Ratchasima for the mobile Cabinet meeting is no exception, filled as it was with his roller-coaster talks full of jokes, sarcasm, flattery and no-nonsense utterances.
“Please miss us, ‘der’”, Prayut told Korat residents, using Northeast-style lingo to catch their attention. “We soldiers can’t lie. We have to keep our promises to the people. Have you listened to my song that says ‘we won’t take too long?’
“But still, we remain here [in power]. We just follow it step-by-step,” the premier said, hinting at the junta’s “road map to democracy”, which has had at least three detours.
“If I can go, I will. Just don’t shoo me away. The more you do, the more I’ll stay on,” he said.
Since taking power after the 2014 coup, Prayut has enjoyed his one-man show at least twice a week – the Tuesday Cabinet meeting and his talk show every Friday. Occasionally, he gets ruffled by the media and makes himself scarce, but that never lasts longer than a couple of weeks.
The government seems keen to push the mobile Cabinet meeting in Korat into the spotlight. They even prepared a plan for the media to cover every minister. That plan, though, came under heavy criticism and had to be effectively shelved.
But that hasn’t stopped Prayut from garnering attention; he played around with a tractor and even chatted with cows and frogs. “Please be a female frog in your next life so I can be a frog prince,” he told a frog while observing a village development project.
“You live in the same shed, so don’t fight with each other,” he told some cows as he fed them. 
But beyond the metaphors to the animals, it was the local people that the prime minister courted. “I prioritise the northeastern region and holding the mobile Cabinet meeting here will enable me to listen to the people directly. This province is also where I was born,” he told people.
Irrigation management, local economy development and the railway construction project were the key items on the agenda for the Cabinet meeting yesterday, when ministers brainstormed after having observed the situation in 33 areas in the Northeast.
After promising people upcoming development projects, Prayut took the opportunity to size up their mood.
“Who wants an election, put your hands up,” he said, to be greeted by silence from the crowd.
“Don’t be afraid of me. I am always in favour of an election. But we have got only bad people so far because good people didn’t go to vote,” he said. “It’ll be the people’s decision whom they want to vote for. But don’t go back to the wrong guys again.” 
With the next general elections still many months away, Prayut appears content to continue to indulge himself in the limelight.
 

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