The National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) has reached a crucial fork in the road. Soon, it will have to provide the public with the facts it has uncovered in the probe of the undocumented luxury watches worn by Deputy Prime Minister Prawit Wongsuwon. Alternatively, it will continue to stonewall. This choice will inform the public that the NACC is a weak organisation, completely unwilling to speak truth to power and lacking the fortitude even to bring about the promise that brought Gen Prayut Chan-o-cha to the premiership.
When he seized power from an elected regime in 2014, then-army chief Gen Prayut made several promises. All but one were indefinable -- returning happiness to the people, for example, or bringing about national reconciliation. The exception was a forceful vow to pursue the corrupt. He specifically vowed to prove his determination by indicting, convicting and bringing to justice and hopefully prison high ranking officials. Until now, he is still short of that stated goal.
This is not for lack of opportunity. One of the first high-ranking people to be accused of corruption was a four-star army general. But Gen Preecha Chan-o-cha was never prosecuted. Former army chief and former deputy defence minister, Gen Udomdej Sitabutr, was responsible for the construction of the extremely controversial Rajabhakti Park but there were no consequences.
Gen Prawit's watches and jewellery caught the public eye, literally, early last December. He inadvertently showed off one expensive watch and a very flashy ring that even the NACC could not ignore. Of course it now is a matter of record that public crowd-sourcing discovered documented proof of 25 different luxury watches, of various brands, on the defence minister's wrist.
The NACC was not able to ignore this evidence, which made news reports abroad as well as within Thailand. What it has been able to do to this point, more than eight months later, is to stonewall the corruption accusation. The public and opinion writers believe that the anti-graft agency is trying to make the country forget that the first deputy prime minister and closest associate of Prime Minister Prayut faces hard questions of how he got access to more than 40 million baht worth of watches.
The president of the NACC is Pol Gen Watcharapol Prasarnrajkit. He has personal ties with Gen Prawit, and with Gen Prawit's brother, former national police chief Pol Gen Patcharawat, who also has faced NACC graft allegations without result. Early this year, because of his known friendship and professional ties to Gen Prawit, Pol Gen Watcharapol recused himself from the investigation of the watches.
This was a notable decision, because it indicated that the NACC was at least aware of its own possible conflict of interest. Pol Gen Watcharapol's promise to stay out of the watch probe would have been a high point, if he actually had done so. Instead, he has stayed directly informed, as evidenced by his press conference on July 20 that gave information about the investigation. He told the media that NACC staff had contacted watch dealers for information about Gen Prawit's claim to have borrowed the timepieces from a now-dead man. So Pol Gen Watcharapol is well up to date on the investigation of his old friend.
That is not an encouraging note. It's a reminder, if any is needed, of how Pol Gen Watcharapol's NACC decided not to pursue blatant, obvious and even admitted nepotism by many members of the junta-appointed National Legislative Assembly.
The NACC cannot have -- and indeed does not deserve -- the trust of the public with such action. It has broken continued promises, both to bring Gen Prawit's investigation to a conclusion and to keep the public informed. It is on the cusp of becoming seen as an agency far more interested in protecting bad actors of the regime than in doing its assigned job.