There should be little surprise that the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) has garnered public approval for its first month in office. The Suan Dusit Poll reported last weekend that 72.7% of those questioned thought "the country has a better atmosphere". It's rather a typical response. A month after Yingluck Shinawatra was appointed prime minister in 2011, polls gave her a 73% approval rating. The 2006 coup-maker, Gen Sonthi Boonyaratglin, scored 84% approval in the first Suan Dusit poll.
Four weeks after seizing power, the NCPO is on the honeymoon cruise Thai citizens appear intent on awarding every new regime, of every type. This is the period when one hears, "Give them a chance". The public has traditionally awaited the performance of a new regime to pass actual judgement. Gen Prayuth Chan-ocha would be well advised to ignore all opinion polls for a while. His hard work hasn't even begun, and if political history means anything, he will be facing criticism soon enough.
However, the inevitable honeymoon period is a splendid opportunity for the army commander and his new regime. So far, he has cherry-picked his issues, selecting obvious sore spots to address, and making examples of officials in uncontroversial areas. Ending the sporadic and murderous violence was as simple as breaking up all the street protests. The gift of World Cup broadcasts was even easier. Taking away some free tickets from board members of Thai Airways International was, in fact, a high-profile publicity stunt performed first by Ms Yingluck during her first weeks in office.
These are significant actions. They show a certain determination, a "can-do" spirit of the new regime. The public is meant to approve, and it told the polling company that it does. But these also are such obvious actions that they can safely be described as populist. In addition, Gen Prayuth has spoken in general terms about his plans, including a speech to the nation last Friday. But his public speeches so far have been laced with generalities. No one can or should criticise pledges to bring about reconciliation, fight corruption, arrest human traffickers and take steps to try to end the violence in the deep South. But there is a long way between words and deeds.
Gen Prayuth is no doubt already starting to make tougher decisions. He and the officials he picks must run the country, deal with foreign friends and the not-so-friendly. Within weeks, the regime must prepare a budget, a place where his intentions will begin to become clearer. Past coup leaders have taken advantage of their absolute power to give the military huge budget increases.
It's time for Gen Prayuth, and his inner circles of advisers and minister-equivalents, to level with the nation. Like any other new regime, military or elected, Gen Prayuth owes the country a policy speech, laying out his major plans and programmes. General goals are easily stated, simply because they are the goals of everyone in the country — political peace, economic progress, secure borders and a fast return to a democratic, elected form of government. No serious group, military or civilian, has ever opposed such goals.
How he intends to achieve such goals, however, concerns every citizen. Tough decisions will be necessary; no one doubts this. The NCPO commander would be well advised to lay out options now, and to encourage public debate. Gen Prayuth has been judged capable in his early days, and the public will continue to vote in coming weeks and months on how well he performs.