With a majority in parliament, the coalition government led by Gen Prayut Chan-o-cha looks set to survive when members of the House cast their votes today following this week's no-confidence debate.
The opposition, spearheaded by the Pheu Thai and Move Forward parities, targeted Gen Prayut and nine of his cabinet ministers, including Deputy Prime Minister Gen Prawit Wongsuwon, Interior Minister Anupong Paojinda, and his deputy Niphon Bunyamanee, Deputy Prime Minister and Public Health Minister Anutin Charnvirakul, and Transport Minister Saksayam Chidchob during the four-day debate, which began on Tuesday.
A minimum of 244 votes is needed to win the debate, the second of its kind since the government took office in 2018, after opposition efforts to extend the debate to Monday failed.
Wirach Ratanasate, Palang Pracharath MP and chief government whip, has boasted that the coalition has 270 votes in its pocket and will likely win hands down.
Despite this expected easy win, questions remain over many issues including the Covid-19 vaccine saga, the city electric train dispute, dubious military purchases, nepotism and other irregularities, that the government refuses to come clean about in order to win back the public's trust. Instead, during the grilling, the PM and his ministers escaped largely unscathed through the use of rhetoric and outdated statistics.
Take, for instance, the issue of Covid-19 vaccine delivery. The government cannot give clear reasons why details of the deal between AstraZeneca and Siam Bioscience must be kept so highly confidential, and also why the rest of the Asean members have obtained the vaccines while Thailand remains out in the cold.
Gen Prayut should know that he didn't do the country a great service by warning the opposition party that debating the issue in the House could potentially cause AstraZeneca to abandon the deal.
In addition, Deputy Prime Minister and Health Minister Anutin raised eyebrows with his odd claim that "it's the best for the country to have only one vaccine brand, instead of 20 brands shared among the population". He must be held accountable if the vaccination programme goes wrong, the reopening of the economy is delayed, and economic hardship worsens.
A lack of parliamentary rules obliging more transparent answers effectively reduced the four-day debate to a meaningless political charade.
Worse, a few outspoken government MPs such as Sira Jenjaka, Pareena Kraikupt, and Paiboon Nititawan, wasted a lot of the allocated debate time with their repeated yet unsubstantiated protests -- an archaic, unconstructive political tactic that devalues the Thai political system as a whole.
So even if the PM and his nine cabinet ministers win the House confidence vote, through a combination of their majority and technicalities, they still won't necessarily have won back the public trust they need to effectively chart a course through the looming political storms and economic crisis.
It must not be forgotten that pro-reform demonstrators are ready to intensify their campaign amid signs that the government will delay amending the constitution. The Constitutional Court earlier this week decided to accept a contentious motion initiated by Mr Paiboon that the parliament may not have the power to amend the military-sponsored charter.
The government must be aware that once politics and the people move to the streets, it could be too late to correct the mistakes.