Thailand has once again been shunted into a period of political uncertainty, after the Constitutional Court’s decision on Tuesday to suspend Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra while it investigates her conduct in a leaked call with Cambodia’s former leader Hun Sen.
Tuesday’s ruling came in response to a petition filed by 36 conservative senators, accusing the 38-year-old leader of breaching ethical standards over the leaked call, which related to the ongoing border dispute with Cambodia. The Court said that there was “sufficient cause to suspect” she breached ministerial ethics in the call, during which she criticized a Thai general and appeared deferential in her discussions with the 72-year-old Hun Sen.
The ruling has opened up an interregnum of uncertain length. In its Tuesday ruling, the Constitutional Court ordered Paetongtarn to stop performing her duties until it announces a decision, and gave her 15 days to respond to the allegations made in the petition. She has since been appointed as culture minister in this week’s cabinet reshuffle, in which capacity she will be able to attend cabinet meetings, despite the Constitutional Court’s ruling. Meanwhile, Suriya Juangroongruangkit, the deputy prime minister and minister of transport, will serve as caretaker leader.
The petition is just one of several legal and political challenges Paetongtarn has faced since the audio of the call with Hun Sen leaked on June 18. Since then, she has come under pressure from both sides of politics to resign, and Bhumjaithai, the second-largest party in her unsteady coalition, has withdrawn its support from the government, bringing it close to collapse.
If the court removes Paetongtarn from office over the leaked call, the House of Representatives will convene to choose her successor – as it did last year, when Srettha Thavisin was removed from office for a similar violation by the Constitutional Court.
Under the 2017 Constitution, the House will have to choose from the slate of prime ministerial candidates that were submitted at the 2023 election, and whose parties won at least 25 seats. This narrows down the choice to just six candidates: Chaikasem Nitisiri from Paetongtarn’s Pheu Thai party, Anutin Charnvirakul from Bhumjaithai, Prawit Wongsuwan from the Palang Pracharath Party, Prayut Chan-o-cha and Pirapan Salirathvibagha from the United Thai Nation Party, and Jurin Laksanawisit from the Democrats. In any event, this would likely be settled fairly quickly – Srettha was removed from office on August 14 and Paetongtarn was sworn into office on the 19th – and represents the best case scenario in terms of stabilizing the ruling coalition (however temporarily).
In this sense, a Constitutional Court ruling favorable to Paetongtarn will simply prolong the political tumult, while buying her only temporary reprieve. The same group of senators has also filed a petition with the National Anti-Corruption Commission, which could also lead to her removal from office, and there is a separate complaint with the Electoral Commission.
Bhumjaithai has also announced plans to submit a motion of no-confidence in the government, and was due to do so when parliament reconvened today. Party spokesperson Boonthida Somchai said yesterday that the party would await the Constitutional Court’s verdict on the prime minister’s conduct, but this could easily be revived if Paetongtarn survives. It would need the support of the People’s Party, but given that the latter has pushed strongly for the dissolution of the House and new elections, it can be expected to support such a vote.
Then there is the street, an important front in Thai political warfare, where a new royalist protest group calling itself Ruam Palang Phaen Din (the United Force of the Land) has pledged to lead more protests calling for Paetongtarn’s resignation, after the large Bangkok protest it organized on June 28. Ruam Palang Phaen Din includes many activists involved in “yellow shirt” protests against other Shinawatra-aligned governments over the last two decades, including the protest movements that preceded military coups against Paetongtarn’s father Thaksin (in 2006) and her aunt Yingluck Shinawatra (in 2014).
Lurking beneath all of this, of course, is the deeper instability that is now baked into Thai politics: the inability or unwillingness of the country’s conservative elites to permit the emergence of a genuinely democratic government. The same conservative forces that tossed Srettha out of office, and are threatening to do the same to the current Thai PM, also closed ranks to prevent the progressive Move Forward Party (MFP) from forming a government after the last election. While the threat posed by the MFP prompted conservative parties to broker a political pact with its previous nemesis, Thaksin’s Pheu Thai party, allowing Thaksin to return to Thailand after more than 15 years of self-exile, the establishment now appears set on once again ending the Shinawatra dynasty’s influence – perhaps for good.
Political stability is a relative term, and even if the immediate crisis resolves itself (with or without Paetongtarn in office), there is little sign of an end to Thailand’s seemingly endless cycles of political crisis and contention.