When the columnists and panjandrums and degree-clutchers come to analyse the state of Thailand in mid- and late May, it's probably this past week that will fascinate them.
It was the week, not to put a fine point on it, where pretty well all the rocks were finally overturned, and light shone on most of the political plots, scheming scams and conspiracies that will shape the next chapters, in three and nine weeks.
The Future Forward (Anakhot Mai) Party is doing well enough in the polls and on the street that prosecutors will decide two days after the election whether to imprison its leader, Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit, and two top executives. The junta and its strongarm of the law, Col Burin Thongprapai, found a hugely devastating smoking gun in a June, 2018, Facebook post where Mr Thanathorn actually criticised Gen (Ret) Prayut's supporters of the Palang Pracharath Party (PPRP).
On March 26, it will be up to the prosecutor whether to grant freedom or bail to these undoubted malefactors.
As subtle and understated as that is, the junta-appointed Election Commission won't even wait for the election to pick up the sharpened stake, load the silver bullet and wave a cross of garlic at the Thai Nation Protectors (Thai Raksa Chart) Party. They're in the Constitutional Court on Thursday.
Note that this latter prosecution by the junta's men in no way is meant as a lingering threat or warning to Pheu Thai.
To be fair, the junta-appointed censors only managed to intimidate pro-opposition broadcasters. The Administrative Court, after an expensive legal resistance by Voice TV, told the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission to stop its harassment. The court struck down the NBTC's remarkably undocumented claim that the red shirt-friendly outlet should be silenced.
Then there's Thailand's best-known watch collector, the million-dollar minister completely cleared of corruption suspicions.
Watchman is the head of the Committee to select Senators. How he got that honour is anyone's guess, but it wasn't through a process of public approval. The choice of a man without social milieu seems strange. He said last week that every member of his committee is a member of the National Council for Peace and Order. We are allowed to know via the junta-authored constitution that the 244-seat (plus the six armed forces commanders) Senate is quite likely to decide that the 30th prime minister of Thailand will be the same as the 29th. But how to get in the graces of the Watchman to be a senator? Fuhgeddaboudit. You'll have better luck asking for the Coca Cola formula.
Vying for attention: Events of the past week suggest election campaigning may be just for show, if the post-poll state of play is all but sewn up.
And speaking of people who want to be prime minister under a democratic system without acknowledging the "democracy" bit, the Election Commission -- every man selected and then approved by the general prime minister -- congratulated the general prime minister for being so neutral.
This was on the same day, practically the same hour that supporters of the general prime minister were handing out the most politically skewed book of the coup era.
Presumably the EC sees the 157 pages of the Pracharath Sang Chart (Pracharath for Nation-building) hagiography as neutral. By the cover, it is a book only about the fabulously successful hero of the May 22, 2014, event formerly called a military coup d'etat. But the Election Commission believes the general prime minister is hoeing a straight, right-down-the-middle furrow of neutrality, so never mind.
Or says it believes that.
This is proof that Thailand is polite to a fault. Otherwise, people would be calling on the EC to force the leading green shirt candidate for prime minister to get the aitch up on the stage. Debate or depart. (No, sorry, there were no mandated debates in 2011 as there are for this campaign.)
Instead, this all-male panel who hold their jobs because of a junta appointment praises the junta head for his marvellous neutrality -- while he is openly campaigning.
Without double standards, there'd be no standards at all.