A swear-in ceremony is scheduled for later Sunday at the Government House in Bangkok.

The 63-year-old retired general Surayud Chulanont has served as a member of the Privy Council, the top advisory body to the King Bhumibol Adulyadej for the past three years. He was also a former army chief and armed forces supreme commander, with a 38-year military career.

Born in Bangkok, Surayud grew up and attended elite schools including St Gabriel and Suankularb Wittayalai in the capital. He was in the first class of the Armed Forces Preparatory Academy, then graduated from Class 12 of the prestigious Chulachomklao Royal Military Academy.

He officially began his military service as a junior lieutenant in 1965 and gained wide experience during his early service in infantry, artillery and counter-insurgency units. He found his niche in Special Forces, the Thai unit patterned largely after the so-called Green Berets of the United States army.

He won an assignment as aide to Prem Tinsulanonda when Prem, currently president of the Privy Council and a leading statesman in Thai politics, became army commander and prime minister in 1970s.

In 1992, Surayud became Commander of the Special Warfare Command, in which one of the officers was Sonthi Boonyaratkalin, leader of the Council for Democratic Reform (CDR) that staged the Sept. 19 coup.

According to the interim constitution issued Sunday morning by the CDR, which from now on exists as Council for National Security(CNS), its chairman is granted the power to fire the interim prime minister.

In 1998, Surayud became the first Special Forces Commander to attain the rank of Army Commander-in-Chief, appointed by then Prime Minister Chuan Leekpai.

According to Bangkok Post, one of the reasons Chuan had picked Surayud was that the latter made public his opinion, after the 1991 military coup and the 1992 anti-government bloody protest, that the army should never again get involved in politics.

In 2003 during the ousted Thaksin Shinawatra's government, Surayud was removed from the army-chief and served as Supreme Commander of Armed Forces for a short time before he retired.