Prayut, his clan and his crew have embarked on a mission to re-establish a traditional bureaucratic polity of patron-client bonds and nepotism.

The roots of that system reach back far beyond the establishment of our modern state. The 1932 revolution simply changed the system of governance from an absolute to a constitutional monarchy while leaving the deeper structures of culture and society unchanged.

Although the Thai people have indeed elected governments, it would be no exaggeration to say that the country has in the main continued to be run by a bureaucracy and a feudal elite. Political struggle before the 1973 uprising mostly comprised power plays among the elite.

Popular politics emerged for a brief period between 1973 and 1976 before a massacre at Thammasat University brought back military rule and “quasi-democracy”.

The military-dominated regime was interrupted in May 1992 when street demonstrations by student and middle-class protesters led to a bloody crackdown by troops. The regime fell and the blood-tainted military took a step back from politics, before returning with a vengeance in the coup of 2006.

It is important to note here that current chief charter drafter Meechai Ruchupan has been an architect for more than one military regime. Then and now, he wrote constitutions that empowered the military and bureaucratic elite to overrule elected administrations.

The military has been a constant presence in Thai politics throughout modern history. Although the uprisings of 1973 and 1992 directly challenged its power, they did little to shake the foundations of military authoritarianism.

The Thai army was established more than a century ago by the monarchy and run by aristocrats familiar with patron-client system. The Army looked modern, but the blue-bloods who took charge of its units, barracks and camps treated it as their personal fighting force – just like old times. Thai commanders have a tradition of employing soldiers and military resources for their personal use. Low-ranking privates, for example, routinely serve their bosses as house boys, cleaning, cutting the grass and washing clothes.

The patron-client system runs deep, nurtured and cultivated in schools where senior students demand that juniors serve as their lackeys. Military officers merely follow that age-old tradition, without giving it much thought.

Nepotism is tolerated in the military in similar fashion. The public cried foul last week over news that Defence Ministry Permanent Secretary General Preecha Chan-o-cha had appointed his son as an officer. When challenged, Preecha, Defence Minister Prawit Wongsuwan and a ministry spokesman chorused that there was nothing in ministry regulations to say the action was wrong.

Preecha even added that such nepotistic was commonplace.

“My son has graduated and he has to work. We have a position available, so he can fill in. What’s wrong? Everybody does it,” he said.

Perhaps the appointment does indeed fulfil ministry and military regulations. It also fulfils the dictionary definition of nepotism as “the action of someone who has power using their authority to get jobs for members of their family”.

If it has been decided that nepotism and the patron-client system are okay, why maintain the attitude that Thailand needs reform?