Do we like them?

Do we like Prayut Chan-o-cha?

Our score: 2 out of 10. A run of harmful words and crackdowns of his own, with only a climate pledge and some court wins to set against it.

Prayut Chan-o-cha was born in 1954 into an army family in Nakhon Ratchasima and climbed the military ladder to army chief. AFP reports he was involved in military decisions during the 2010 crackdown on Red Shirt protesters, in which 90 people were killed. That is the career that set him up for 2014.

In 2014 he launched the coup that ousted Yingluck Shinawatra's elected government, brought in martial law and headed the junta for five years, then held on after a disputed 2019 election. Years later he defended the takeover as a “necessary evil”, a line he repeated as the eighth anniversary rolled round. Plenty of Thais saw a general stopping a deadlock, plenty more saw a general who never gave the keys back.

On the harm test, Human Rights Watch said his elected government did little to fix the repressive legacy of military rule. It reported that at least 130 opposition politicians, academics and activists faced illegal assembly charges in 2019, sometimes with sedition added, for peaceful rallies. Thailand's youth-led protests of 2020 demanded his resignation, and he survived them.

Then there is how he talks about people. After Thailand deported Uighur refugees to China in 2015, Coconuts reported him asking reporters whether they wanted to feed them “until they produce three litters of offspring”. In 2014, after two British tourists were found dead on Koh Tao, he asked whether women in bikinis could be safe, and the remark was condemned at home and abroad. He apologised, saying “I'm sorry that it hurt people.”

Credit where due: he kept winning in the courts. The Constitutional Court spared him in five cases between 2019 and 2022, including the army-housing complaint and a 6:3 ruling that his eight-year term had not run out. He said in 2022 the justice system could work “without my intervention”. His critics argued the rulings were convenient, and AFP described a prickly streak with reporters, including the cardboard cut-out he left to field questions.

On the planet, at COP26 in 2021 he announced a net-zero emissions target for 2050 and said there was no “Plan B” for climate action. That counts for something, though we only read his announcement and didn't check how Thailand delivered. We found no verified charity work of his own, so there's little real good to set against the harm.