The public relations campaign of coup leader Prayut Chan-o-cha seems to be running at full speed and last week the country saw a glimpse of moves being undertaken by people around him to boost the popularity of the military leader.
With exactly one month to go before Gen Prayut and his bunch of cronies pops open the champagne bottles to celebrate their 4th anniversary of the coup that put an end to a democratically elected government, the junta is in full swing to undertake a campaign to try to maintain Gen Prayut's power after the elections that are slated for early next year.
The latest move comes to portray Gen Prayut as a leader with vision and what better way to do that than to bring in Chinese businessman Jack Ma to invest and commit to the development of Thailand.
Umesh Pandey is Editor, Bangkok Post.
E-commerce giant Alibaba's Mr Ma flew down to Bangkok to commit just over 10 billion Baht of investment into the country and in return got a meeting with Gen Prayut along with the rest of his key cabinet at Government House.
This was a big boost for the coup leader who has been battling declining popularity as anti-incumbency sentiments start to arise.
Gen Prayut had a similar boost late last year when he met with US President Donald Trump during his trip to the United States but that started to fade and a new jump-start was needed.
Supporters of Gen Prayut have been looking to portray the usually arrogant and foul-mouthed coup leader as a world-class leader and one can expect more of the facade-building measures to come over the next couple of months as Gen Prayut prepares to get into full-time politics.
Although Gen Prayut has said since day one that he was not keen to join politics and that he seized power only to "save" the country, over the past four years he seems to have changed his mind and now has openly admitted that he wants to return in a political arena.
Gen Prayut has admitted to the fact that he was keen to return to power but how and with which party is a question he still is unable to answer. To facilitate the return to power Gen Prayut and his team are working overtime to try to pull as many of the political old guards into his fold as possible. The latest move comes as the military government appointment of the two brothers of the Khunpluem family to be "adviser" and assistant to a cabinet minister.
Sonthaya Khunpluem, 55, was made adviser on political affairs to Gen Prayut while Mr Sonthaya's younger brother, the 45-year-old Itthiphol, was appointed as assistant to the tourism and sports minister.
Mr Sonthaya was the former tourism and sports minister while Mr Itthiphol was the mayor of Pattaya, an area where their father Somchai Khunpluem, also known as Kamnan Poh, was considered to be the "Godfather of Chonburi".
Their appointment comes with rumours swirling around that the military would form a new party is trying to cannibalise on parties that are likely to support it after the elections. The Khunpluem family has been associated with many political parties with the latest being the Chat Thai Pattana party lead by Worawut Silpa-archa.
The fact that the military government is trying to lure some of the potential members of various factions to its side is an interesting development as it could be a double-edged sword. The fact that the junta is taking away some of the key factions away from the smaller political parties could make these parties, who traditionally have been pro-government, to side with the nemesis of the junta.
Up until now the smaller parties have remained neutral and have not pledged their allegiance to anyone, be it with the military, or Democrat or Pheu Thai parties. But with the games being played by the military to try to cannibalise factions in the smaller parties, these parties would have no option but to declare their anti-military stance thus alienating the military backed party.
What the military backed party should be doing is to try to break into the factions of the bigger parties for it is they who are going to be the game changer not the smaller parties. The smaller parties are the ones who tend to go with the flow and join any and every democratically elected government.
Instead of trying to make more enemies, what the military-backed party needs to do is try to appease these smaller parties to be their allies and look at ways to change the tide of anti-incumbency with policies to help the poor.