The former prime minister said those are main tasks the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) is supposed to carry out before handing over power to an elected government after the next general election.

“There has been very little progress on reforms. In fact, I see some regression in certain areas, such as reforming the media,” Abhisit said.

“A proposal calls for state officials to sit on the professional media council, which goes against what it is supposed to be. We call on the government to give media groups some teeth for self-regulation. But having state officials in the media council is very risky as there will be more government intervention into the media sector,” he said.

Abhisit called on Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha, who also heads the NCPO, to help get rid of confusion regarding this matter by clearly stating that the media must self-regulate without state intervention.

“If that is the case, people will become confident that Thailand is reforming the media in line with the international principles,” he said.

The veteran politician said he thought it was a mistake for the NCPO to task the reform work with powerless agencies like the now-defunct National Reform Council and the National Reform Steering Assembly. But, he said the junta now seems to have become keener about the matter by setting up the Administrative Committee for Reform, Reconciliation and National Strategies.

However, he pointed out that since the NCPO has only a year or two in power before the change of government following the next election, |they must expedite the work that |still needs to be done.

He also did not think any orders issued by the NCPO chief under the all-powerful Article 44 of the interim charter would result in successful reforms. Abhisit said that without widespread acceptance and public participation, such orders would not achieve the intended goals.

“In order to achieve reforms, you need to allow participation from people of diverse views and have them reach an accord,” he said.

Prayut’s power under Article 44 – which encompasses the legislative, executive and judicial branches of government – has remained under the new Constitution which came into effect in early April.

Abhisit said he did not expect the national reforms to be completed within the NCPO-led government’s tenure. He explained that large-scale changes require widespread participation from all the elements involved – an environment that was unlikely following a military coup.

“They are concerned with security and they are afraid the conflict could re-emerge” if all political sides are allowed to freely campaign on their reform proposals, Abhisit said.

Worse still, with politicians being excluded, the post-coup government has to mainly rely on the bureaucracy in pushing for reforms, which explains why most reform proposals are conservative, he added.

According to Abhisit, an urgent reform issue is how to boost public confidence in the political system, particularly after the next election.

“I am a bit worried. The reform’s direction is not clear, so we haven’t seen if the reform goals will be achieved,” he said.

In regard to reconciliation efforts, the former PM said the NCPO had completed the process of hearing opinions from conflicting parties but there had been no clear proposals or solutions from the junta.

“Reconciliation is no easy matter. There is no uniform formula as to what should be done,” he said.