BANGKOK: Thailand's junta chief on Friday ruled out elections for at least a year to allow time for political "reforms", and defended the recent military coup in the face of rising international alarm.
In his first televised national address after announcing the army takeover last week, Prayut Chan-O-Cha said the new military regime planned to work towards returning the nation of 67 million people to democracy in around 15 months.
The general, who was given crucial royal endorsement on Monday, said a first phase of around three months would focus on "reconciliation" in the ferociously divided nation.
A cabinet and new draft constitution would then be put in place to enact reforms during a second year-long phase. Only after this could elections be held.
"Stage three is a general election under an absolute democratic system that is acceptable to all sides. Laws will be modernised so that we can have good and honest people to run the country," he said.
Thailand's military seized power on May 22 the 19th actual or attempted putsch in its modern history and set about rounding up scores of political figures, academics and activists.
Authorities have abrogated the constitution, curtailed civil liberties under martial law and imposed a nightly curfew.
Prayut reiterated warnings against dissent in the face of near daily pockets of anti-coup protest. He also said that restrictions on the press and social media were "necessary" because they had been used to stoke divisions in the past.
Thailand has seen months of debilitating protest against the government of former premier Yingluck Shinawatra, who was turfed from office by the courts for abuse of power just weeks before the remainder of the beleaguered leadership was ousted in the coup.
Demonstrators called for political "reforms" before an election in a bid to rid the country of the influence of the Shinawatra family, particularly the deeply divisive former premier Thaksin Yingluck's brother who was deposed in a 2006 coup.
That military intervention unleashed nearly a decade of often bloody political turmoil, with periodic rival mass protest on the streets.
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