A member of the People’s Assembly for Political Reform speaks during a press conference yesterday at which the group questioned the interim government’s handling of urgent national problems and warned of serious setbacks if it failed to fulfil its pledge

Leading political activists yesterday questioned the interim government's direction in dealing with the country's urgent problems and warned of possible serious setbacks from failure to fulfil its pledge to correct mistakes made by the previous government.

Three months after the coup, there is no concrete progress in the investigation into the wrongdoings of the Thaksin government, which was declared a priority goal by the Council for National Security (CNS), said Suriyasai Katasila, secretary-general of the Campaign for Popular Democracy.

"The end of the matter is nowhere in sight and this could lead to growing distrust among the public," he said.

Poverty relief policies partly implemented by the previous government should be given priority but the interim government seems not to have immediately continued with them, he said.

Suriyasai called on the CNS and the interim government to promptly carry out investigations into the four major mistakes of the Thaksin government that they cited as the reasons for the staging the September 19 coup, namely, causing public disunity, interfering in the work of independent organisations, corruption, and committing lese majeste.

Suriyasai was joined by other leading political activists in expressing their views on the performance of the interim government during a seminar on direction of political reform three months after the coup.

He said the People's Assembly for Political Reform (PAPR), an alliance of democracy groups that took part in public campaigns for the ouster of the Thaksin government, would give the CNS a chance to work on a clean and fair drafting of the new constitution but would reconsider its stance towards the military council if it notices anything counterproductive.

A core member of the PAPR, Dr Somkiat Pongpaiboon, said that people had high expectations of the interim government but its work in the past three months had disappointed.

"Investigations into the previous government's mistakes are proceeding slowly and obscurely. The goals set by the military council may not be achieved in one year as it earlier claimed," he said.

Priority tasks for the interim government and the CNS should be reforming the justice and education systems, setting a policy for natural resource management and improving the tax system, Somkiat suggested.

Somsak Kosaisuk, another PAPR leader, said he was disappointed with the performance of the interim government and the CNS and not confident about their ability to carry out an administrative policy under the King's sufficiency economy concept.

"Their pledge to pursue sufficiency economy may be just a lip service. They even seem to be at loss as to what to do first," he said.