Bangkok: Thailand's junta has moved to weaken the powers of politicians and reinforced its tight control of the country, appointing a military-dominated interim legislature that will be tasked with introducing sweeping reforms.
Coup leader Prayuth Chan-ocha is expected to become prime minister when a 200-member legislature holds it first meeting on August 7.
More than half of the members are serving or retired military officers. Eight police have also been appointed.
Since toppling Thailand's democratically-elected government on May 22 the junta has imposed strict censorship, quashed most dissent and threatened or arrested critics of the coup.
Officials linked to former prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra and her tycoon brother Thaksin Shinawatra have been purged.
The junta has promised to allow democratic elections in 2015.
Ms Yingluck, the country's first woman prime minister, who faces charges of neglect over a costly scheme that subsidised rice for farmers, was allowed to travel overseas earlier this month. She was reunited last week in Paris with Mr Thaksin, who lives in exile to avoid a two-year jail sentence for corruption.
The military insists it had no option but to take over the country after months of political unrest and an annulled election.
Soldiers have staged 19 coups or attempted coups in the country since the 1930s.
Commanders have mapped out a similar reform agenda to anti-government protesters who before the coup blockaded key intersections in Bangkok and occupied government offices for months.
Firebrand anti-government protest leader Suthep Thaugsuban has entered the monkhood.
