Thaksin Shinawatra claimed he had seen the coup against his sister's government coming as soon as demonstrators hit the streets in 2014.
In the second interview with Al Jazeera this month, Thaksin talked to Wayne Hay on Monday about the challenges facing the country and what lies ahead.
The fugitive former prime minister said during the People's Democratic Reform Committee demonstrations, soldiers had mingled with protesters.
"And in April, they started to put bunkers on the streets... Then I knew," he said, ruling out the barriers were there to protect the demonstrators.
He added another tell-tale sign was the way the top brass communicated with his sister, former PM Yingluck Shinawatra, but declined to elaborate.
"There's no doubt this was a planned event," he said.
On the upcoming election, the former prime minister said it could come this year despite the 2017 roadmap for it set forth by the Prayut Chan-o-cha government.
"The situation doesn't allow them to stay long. A government which doesn't care for the people can't last long," he said.
On the new constitution, Thaksin remains firm on his view.
"It's a charter that doesn't care or respect people's voice. Even though the whole country votes for a government, it can't run the country nor can it implement its platform. It has to comply with the so-called national strategy council who controls elected governments.
"It's the worst constitution ever, even worse than Myanmar's before national reform."
Thaksin also accused the junta of failing when it comes to reconciliation while defending the rice-pledging programme.
"The rice-pledging scheme is the only policy in the world where the policy itself is not wrong but policymakers are. It's a policy endorsed by voters. The principle behind it is: if we're proud to be the world's top rice exporter, we should help make the profession sustainable,"
He claimed the government put the policy in place and took responsibility at the policy level. At the implementation level, officials put it into action.
"It was unfortunate that India sold a record 9 million tonnes that year. Traders also didn't buy and we had to keep stockpiling. There were also great floods that year."
Thaksin said for a programme of this scale, there were always loopholes. "The bad thing was that we did not have a computerised system for it."
Asked why he did not return to Thailand, he said he feared for his life.
"There have already been four attempts on my life," he added but declined to elaborate.