The Thai (military) government does have some populist policies...

The Thai (military) government does have some populist policies to keep people happy, tax breaks, higher minimum wages, extra public holidays, a new rice pledging scheme to help rice farmers. Rural communities in particular are targets of these programs.

I have no idea but it's entirely possible given the size of the employee population and how many communities shutting down the mine affects the D-PM may want to understand what the government needs to do to keep this open, and thereby become a favourable force in the mind of those affected by job losses and community outreach programs that KCN has provided.

This is political not logical, but in this case it could be both.

Edit: I should have mention the Thai economy is also under some pressure, the govt cracked down on Zero dollar tourists and the Chinese tourist number have gone thru the floor, that will adversly affect tourism $$ which accounts for something like 12% of GDP from memory.