DHAKA: Thailand’s junta confirmed on Wednesday that elections will not be held until September 2016, dealing a further blow to hopes that the kingdom's generals will swiftly hand power back to a civilian government.

When army chief and now Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha swept to power in a coup last May he initially said he hoped to hold elections within 15 months.

But that timetable has repeatedly slipped as the junta goes about rewriting the country’s constitution, a process critics have described as an attempt to consolidate an unelected elite’s control over Thai politics once new polls are held.

‘The Prime Minister expects the elections will be held in September (2016),’ junta spokesman Colonel Werachon Sukondhapatipak told reporters after Prayut met a delegation of UN ambassadors in Bangkok, reports The Straits Times.

BDST: 1250 HRS, MAY 27, 2015
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