The eight-year term limit was inserted into the constitution to prevent popular politicians from leveraging election victories into a long-term hold on power, as exiled former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra was accused of doing.
Yet no-one seems to have anticipated that the limit would come back to haunt the man who supervised the writing of that charter.
The political rules in Thailand are still being disputed, and no-one in a country which has experienced at least 20 military coups would bet on there never being another.