Council for National Security chairman General Sonthi Boonyaratglin makes a point during his keynote speech at a seminar at the Amari Airport hotel yesterday. He said most participants of the anti-junta rally were hired to attend.

The prime minister's announcement will be about more government support for citizens, he said, but refused to elaborate further.

Speaking at a seminar on sending nurses to work in the restive South, Sonthi said he was confident that corrupt politicians would eventually be punished.

He said he knew what the last government had done and said they deserved punishment.

"In the next election, everybody in the Administrative Branch must be patriotic, love the religion and the monarchy," he said.

"Everything is going according to a set plan and the Assets Examination Committee's work is progressing steadily," the Army chief said.

Party dissolution, disclosure of corruption in the last government and splits in the Thai Rak Thai Party were all in his plan when he decided to lead the military coup, he said, adding that the investigations by the AEC and the Department of Special Investigation (DSI) had made much progress.

The country will return to democracy soon, and the rivals of the now defunct Thai Rak Thai party will win the coming election, he said.

Touching on the anti-government rallies that have been staged regularly over the past few weeks, Sonthi said the protests would fail to topple the government and the CNS as there were only 2,000 "hard core" protesters.

The rest of protesters were hired for Bt500 each and mostly came from the Northeast, he said, adding that the number of protesters would not exceed 17,000 people at most.

Military officers had been sent to villages and would make people understand democracy better, he said.

Sonthi said he was born in Bangkok and his family, Boonyaratglin, was an old family and loyal to the country, and he could never have bad intentions towards the Kingdom.

Sonthi said he took a very high risk when he led the military coup on September 19 last year. But as a soldier who had vowed loyalty to the nation, religion and the King, he had no choice but to lead the coup and prevent anyone hurting the monarchy.

He said politicians should not be corrupt in the future. Good people must be rewarded fairly with good positions, without having to pay money.

"When I was the chairman of the Council for Democratic Reform, some people offered money to me for bureaucratic positions. I had never faced anything like that because there was no such thing in the military," he said.

Panya Thiewsangwan

The Nation