The People Network for Sustainable Development, which includes members of top environmentalist groups nationwide, gathered in front of Government House on Wednesday.

More than 150 police officers are reportedly guarding the protest site at the Public Sector Development Commission Office, which is across the road from the Government House.

A representative of the group, Lertsak Khamkongsak, read a statement on Wednesday morning proclaiming that the people have a right according to the Constitution to demonstrate peacefully, so the group was using this right to protest against the new Enhancement and Conservation of National Environmental Quality Bill.

The bill has been criticised by activists saying that not only did it not solve problems with existing environmental and health impact assessment procedures, it will intensify those problems, and will make it even easier for problematic and harmful projects to get approval.

The statement also pointed out that the new bill has been pushed forward very rapidly to the National Legislative Assembly (NLA) without taking heed to public-sector suggestions about its flaws.

Lertsak stressed that the protesters would not return home unless the government takes satisfactory action over the bill.

Prime Minister Office deputy secretary-general Sompas Nilapund met the protesters and received letters to take to the government in the afternoon.

Meanwhile, the bill is under the consideration of NLA. It was approved on its first reading on November 24.

Prawit came under fire when a photograph of him shading his eyes from the sun went viral on Monday, with social-media users drawing attention to his diamond ring and watch.

The timepiece looked similar to a model by Richard Mille, a brand popular among Hollywood and sports stars, which would have cost between Bt4 million and Bt10 million.

Such a pricey watch was not included in Prawit’s asset declaration back in 2014, when he started serving in the Cabinet, but it is possible that he obtained it since the declaration.

Speaking reluctantly, Prawit refused to elaborate on his possession on the watch. “It’s no use explaining to the media. I will just go one-shot with the NACC,” he said.

Political activist Srisuwan Janya planned to file a petition to the NACC to probe Prawit’s possession of the ring and watch on Thursday.

The NACC, appointed by the junta’s handpicked legislators, last year cleared suspects over procurement irregularities at the military-run Rajabhakti Royal Park

The court found Watana Phummaret, 62, guilty of a premeditated bomb attack at the hospital that injured 21 people, most of them retired military officers, and caused damage worth over Bt1 million.

The court said there was strong evidence that Watana assembled a pipe bomb and put it inside a vase in front of the medicine dispensing room in the Chalerm Phrakiart building on May 22. He then detonated it with a timer.

The court convicted him on three counts of launching a bomb attack that injured others, assembling a bomb and possessing a weapon without license.

He was initially given a life sentence for the bomb attack, three years for the bomb making and one year for possessing the bomb.

Since he pleaded guilty and confessed during interrogation, the court commuted his life sentence to 26 years and the sentence on the two other counts to 12 months.

The jail term will begin after he completes serving a four-year term he was given on September 13 in another case, which saw him found guilty of having explosives in his house.

FIVE PEOPLE were selected yesterday to fill the vacancies in the Election Commission (EC) after each of them won two-thirds of the votes from the selection committee.

Among them were those considered as “shoo-in candidates”: Pracha Terat, a former high-ranking official at the Interior Ministry, and Takorn Tanthasit, secretary-general of the Office of the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission.

The others who made the cut were Ruangwit Kadesuwan, former dean of Chaiyaphum Rajabhat University; Issaree Hansacharoonroj, dean of the Rajamangala University of Technology Rattanakosin; and Chompan Pongcharoen Sutheerachat, legal consultant at Worawisit Co.

Pornpetch Vichitcholchai, president of the National Legislative Assembly (NLA), announced the results yesterday after a meeting to interview and hear the vision of the 15 candidates who passed the qualification test. He said each of the five people selected had won more than two-thirds of the votes from the selection committee.

In the first round, only four people were selected, he told reporters. But since five people were needed to fill the positions, a second round of voting was held and Pracha selected, he said.

The selection committee’s conclusions concerning the five candidates need to be considered and endorsed again tomorrow. After that, the list of names would be proposed to the NLA for further endorsement, Pornpetch said, adding the schedule was uncertain.

Concerning complaints from people who fail to qualify, Pornpetch said the committee had already discussed the issue and agreed the selection process must strictly follow the law, adding that it was impossible for the committee to change the criteria.

He said it would not be fair to other contestants in other agencies who had been through a similar qualification test.

According to the organic law governing the EC, the commission comprises seven members, two of whom should be come the Supreme Court. Pornpetch said he had heard one person had already won a place and that the Supreme Court would convene today to select the other.

Failed candidates such as Peerasak Hinmuangkao, a former director of the Land Department, and Thawatchai Thaikhiew, a deputy permanent secretary of the Justice Ministry, said the selection committee had not explained why they did not succeed in their applications.

Peerasak said he believed it could have been for his shares in an energy company. However, this was not against the rules so he had already petitioned the selection result, he said.

Thawatchai said he could have been disqualified because he did not have the years of experience as required by the law. He did not appeal the result, saying that the process followed the rules.

The new Constitution as well as the organic law have given more power to the agency. EC members are empowered to not only organise elections but also reschedule or cancel them if poll fraud is suspected as well as issue red or yellow cards to people involved in the corrupt activities.

A photograph of Prawit shading his eyes from the sun went viral on Monday after the new Cabinet had its first meeting and a group photo of the ministerial team was taken.

Of all the Cabinet members, Prawit – a deputy PM and defence minister – attracted the greatest attention in the picture, which showed his hand and wrist accessorised with a big diamond ring and the fancy watch.

The expensive-looking timepiece was later found to be a Richard Mille that would have cost between Bt4 million and Bt10 million.

Photos have been posted online showing Prawit’s wristwatch is the same brand as worn by elite tennis player Rafael Nadal, whose annual income is reported by international business magazines as being between US$35 million and $42.5 million (Bt1.14 billion-Bt1.38 billion).

Richard Mille watches are also popular among other high-profile celebrities such as singers Ed Sheeran, Jay Z and Kanye West, actor Joe Manganiello and footballer Neymar da Silva.

Netizens questioned how a military officer could have afforded such a luxurious item and wondered whether he had reported his ownership of it to the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC).

Although Prawit did not declare his Richard Mille or the diamond ring in the assets and liability list submitted to the NACC when he became deputy prime minister in 2014, some critics said that to be fair, it was possible he had only acquired them since the declaration.

However, Ruangkrai Leekijwattana, a member of the Pheu Thai Party legal team, on Tuesday urged the NACC to investigate whether Prawit was concealing his assets.

Having observed the general since he served as Army chief under Abhisit Vejjajiva’s administration until his role as a key figure in the junta government, Ruangkrai said that Prawit could have a number of assets, including Buddha amulets, jewellery and watches valued at more than Bt200,000, which he had been concealing from the NACC.

“Politicians just want to create news in the media and sway public opinion that the government does nothing, while Prime Minister General Prayut Chan-o-cha has ordered government spokespeople to inform people about assistance measures,” Sansern said yesterday.

His comments came after politicians proposed that the government support rice farmers, because prices for their crops had fallen during the harvest season. They suggested the introduction of a minimum income guarantee scheme that would compensate farmers for the difference between market and reference prices.

They also called on the government to provide financial support for farmers who delay selling their rice during the harvest season, when prices are often lower.

Sansern said the Cabinet in September had put in place measures to support rice farmers for the 2017-18 harvest season. The government also assigned the Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives to provide soft loans to farmers who wanted to delay selling their rice, he added. Farmers are eligible for loans of up to 90 per cent of their crops’ value.

The project, which began on November 1 this year, will run until December 30, 2018.

The government had also given out handouts of Bt1,200 per rai, with a limit of 10 rai per rice field, to help farmers improve rice quality, and Bt1,500 per tonne for rice kept in stockpiles, Sansern said.

He added that the government had assigned state-owned banks to provide soft loans to cooperatives or community enterprises that processed rice into food products. It also provided a 3-per-cent interest rate subsidy for rice mills that bought paddy from farmers and stockpiled it for two to six months.

The cost of the rice assistance package was about Bt87.2 billion and the government aimed to take 12.5 million tonnes of white rice from the market, out of total white rice production of 26-27 million tonnes.

To shore up rice and rubber prices, the government had also looked at long-term measures, including information technology assistance to support the farm sector, promoting processing goods, supporting mechanical farming, marketing farm products, promoting financial access and improving farmer welfare, he added.

Meanwhile, Luck Wajananawat, the newly appointed deputy minister of Agriculture and Cooperatives, told The Nation that the government’s policy was to let market mechanisms determine the price of farm products, as previous minimum-income guarantees and rice-pledging schemes had cost too much and resulted in wasted tax money.

Poor farmers would be supported by the welfare card project implemented by Finance Ministry, Luck said. Currently, 3.96 million farmers whose annual incomes are no more than Bt100,000 get support from the project.

“Long-term projects, such as encouraging farmers to form cooperatives and community enterprises, may take time before they can deliver desirable outcomes, but these will be sustainable and beneficial to farmers,” Luck added.

THE JUNTA government yesterday was criticised by red-shirt leaders and a political critic after it claimed to have discovered a cache of military-grade weapons and exploited the “questionable” incident to justify the continued ban on political activities.

Weng Tojirakarn, a key leader of the red-shirt umbrella group the United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship (UDD), said the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) should stop looking for scapegoats and fulfil its promise to hold elections.

Although the discovery of the weapons cache in Chachoengsao was linked to the red-shirt activists such as Wuthipong “Ko Tee” Kachathamkul and Jakrapob Penkair, Weng said he supported a fact-finding process and encouraged the junta to bring the culprits to justice if the announcement of the discovery was true.

Weng said it was questionable why weapons had been found every time the government faced a difficult situation. For instance, people had been demanding the lifting of the political ban and “out of the blue” the NCPO found military weapons left over from an operation launched in March, he said.

The red-shirt leader also said it was widely speculated that Wuthipong was dead after unconfirmed reports that he had been kidnapped while in hiding in Laos.

However, he said the junta should pursue a double track, hunting down criminals responsible for the weapons and working towards next year’s elections.

Jakrapob, a former minister to the Prime Minister’s Office, took to Facebook on Monday to deny the allegations related to the weapons and condemned the military regime for spreading “false news”.

In the post, the opposition figure, who has been in exile for almost 10 years, denied any connection with the weapons, adding that the “discovery” showed the hopelessness of the accusers and those who believed them.

The former minister said the only people who needed weapons and bought many of them were “those in high positions with low moral standards in Thailand”, apparently referring to the military regime.

Jakrapob added that his only fight was based on democratic principles, a battle that the people could win without violence, which was against morality and universal principles.

However, he warned that an uprising was possible if the regime kept using its “old trick” to accuse dissenters of having ill intentions and using violence.

After the discovery of the weapons, the NCPO’s lifting of its ban on political activities seemed more unlikely.

A number of NCPO officials have said that political activities should not be allowed at present because of the “current situation”, regardless how the decision could affect the “road map to democracy”.

Political scientist Titipol Phakdeewanich said security was not a good enough reason to prevent the return of democracy. The junta would not lift the ban because it was consolidating its power to ensure its influence after the election, he added.

While activists and politicians were being kept quiet due to the ban, the NCPO would burnish its image and try to build its popularity, he said.

In a related development, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson yesterday said in a statement to commemorate Thailand’s National Day that the United States was looking forward to next year’s election.

AFTER THE discovery of a cache of military-grade weapons was met with public scepticism as a possible ploy to maintain political restrictions and perhaps further delay the election, the junta yesterday linked the cache to well-known red-shirt leaders.

Prime Minister General Prayut Chan-o-cha and the nation’s army chief also reiterated concerns about the reported discovery and invoked it to justify the continued ban on political activities.

Former Thaksin Shinawatra government spokesman Jakrapob Penkair and former deputy commander of the 3rd Army Region, Lt-General Manas Paorik, were among a growing list of suspects accused in connection to the large cache of military weapons reportedly found in Chachoengsao’s Bang Nam Priao district last week.

While arrest warrants for weapons charges were already outstanding for both men since mid-2014, police said they would seek additional arrest warrants tomorrow.

Colonel Burin Thongprapai, a legal officer at the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) Supreme Command, had filed a complaint with the Crime Suppression Division on Friday against Jakrapob, Manas and three others – Wattana Sapwichian, Chaiwat Polpho and Somjet Khongwattana – a source at the Royal Thai Police said yesterday.

File photo: Jakrapob Penkair

The five were accused of possessing military-grade weapons and racketeering, the source said. The weapons linked to the Bang Nam Priao cache were reportedly from the same batch that the five suspects allegedly distributed to create chaos during the 2014 protests.

Jakrapob disappeared from public long before the coup in May 2014, while Manas reportedly turned himself in to authorities after the first charges were brought in 2014 and has since been free on bail.

Wattana, 53, will be brought to court as authorities apply for his first detention period on Thursday, deputy national police chief Pol General Srivara Ransibhramanakul said yesterday.

Initial questioning allegedly discovered Wattana’s links to “hardcore red shirts” and his previous record of possessing unauthorised military weapons, Srivara said.

In 2014, Wattana was arrested for possessing military-grade guns, ammunition and explosives following the apprehension of Somjet, who allegedly had distributed weapons during the protests.

At the time, Wattana confessed to having received weapons from Somjet to redistribute, including to Chaiwat, but Wattana then reportedly dumped the weapons in Ayutthaya’s Lat Bua Luang district after the junta announced plans to punish people for weapons possession. He finished his 20 months jail term for the previuos case recently.

Meanwhile, national police chief Pol General Chakthip Chaijinda dismissed speculation that the discovery of the weapons in Chachoengsao was a false-flag operation.

He said he would not comment on politics, but added that speculation that the discovery had been a set up was untrue because Srivara, who oversees national security, “would not do it” and the weapons were real.

‘Ko Tee’ connection?

Prayut yesterday voiced concerns about a purported link between the weapons and the extremist militant Wutthipong “Ko Tee” Kachathamakul.

“The first finding is that the weapons belong to the same batch as found earlier. But to whom they are related will be investigated later,” he said.

When police revealed the weapons discovery last week, they presumed that they belonged to Wutthipong due to their serial numbers. Wutthipong fled to Laos after the coup in 2014 but his current whereabouts are unknown, with unconfirmed reports a few months ago concluding that he had been abducted and killed.

A junta meeting yesterday also concluded that it would be inappropriate to lift the ban on political activities any time soon.

If political parties are adversely affected by the continuation of the ban, remedial measures will be taken, said General Chalermchai Sitthisat, NCPO secretary-general.

“Unless we have confidence [in the overall situation], we won’t let go [of the ban],” Chalermchai said.

The regime would provide a solution to the conundrum related to the requirement for political parties to make arrangements for the national election and the junta’s decision to keep the ban on political activities in place, Deputy Prime Minister General Prawit Wongsuwan said.

By continuing the restriction, the junta is taking advantage of the discovery of the weapons cache to consolidate power, said political scientist Titipol Phakdeewanich.

The NCPO was working to ensure a smooth transfer of military influence into post-election politics, he said.

In addition to the legislation that would facilitate an ongoing military presence in national politics, the junta also needed to build its political currency in the meantime, he added.

Forty-one applicants contested to be members of the revamped electoral agency, which has five vacancies as the previous commissioners’ tenures were terminated following the new organic law governing the body.

The organic law required that the EC selection process be completed within 90 days after the law became effective — by around mid-December.

In the meantime, the outgoing commissioners have been acting in a caretaker capacity.

The 15 qualified candidates are:

– Issaree Hansacharoonroj, Rajamangala University of Technology Rattanakosin

– Pracha Terat, former governor of Chon Buri province.

– Takorn Tanthasit, secretary-general of the Office of the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission

– Ruangwit Kadesuwan, former dean of Chaiyaphum Rajabhat University

– Suntud Sirianuntapiboon, environmental science professor at King Mongkut’s University of Technology Thon Buri

– Chompan Pongcharoen Sutheerachat, legal consultant at Worawisit Co Ltd

– Chaiwat Prachongchai, board member of the Lawyers Council

– Mungkorn Charoenphol, an independent lawyer

– Sawai Chitpien, an independent lawyer

– Prayad Senwiratch, president of the Consumer Rights Protection Association

– Nitwadee Jeerarojphiny, ex-director of Watprasriarn School in Ratchaburi and currently professor at Western University

– Thongchai Chanchaeng, former director of Ban Pueai School in Si Sa Ket

– Laddawan Tantiwittayapitak, former secretary-general of the Law Reform Commission of Thailand

– Thongsuk Duangbupha, president of the National Anti-Corruption Network

– Somsri Han-anantasuk, committee member of the Friends of Women Foundation, the Democracy Foundation, and the Cross Cultural Foundation.

The deputy prime minister declined to give further details on whether the deadline for parties to complete their registration records under the organic political parties’ law would be extended, saying only that the regime’s legal department would take up the issue.

Despite the holding of Cabinet and National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) meetings on Monday, he said the regime had yet to assess the situation after the recent finding of weapons of war.

Some observers have speculated that the incident could affect the timing of the junta’s decision to allow political activities.

The ban on political activity is hindering parties from holding meetings despite the promulgation of the organic law, which requires them to complete the tidying up of their registration records by early January.

Prawit added that the media should see for themselves whether a revocation of the ban would fit the prevailing circumstances.

Because the new Cabinet has just taken office, ministers are working to adapt themselves to the new situation, he said, declining however to comment on the connection between the recent discovery of war weapons and the NCPO’s assessment of the present situation.