Thai court rules PM can stay, did not exceed term limit

By GRANT PECK and CHALIDA EKVITTHAYAVECHNUKUL
Associated Press

BANGKOK (AP) — Thailand’s Constitutional Court has ruled that Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha can remain in his job and did not violate a constitutional provision limiting him to eight years in office. Opposition lawmakers had said that Prayuth, who took power as army commander in a 2014 coup, had violated the eight-year limit for prime ministers in Thailand’s 2017 Constitution. Prayuth officially became prime minister in a military government in August 2014, and was named prime minister again after a 2019 election. Using 2014 as a starting date, he would have reached his legal limit last month. He argued that the countdown for the term limit should begin when the current constitution came into effect in April 2017.