Thailand’s PM digs in as defections and legal challenge threaten her power

As Paetongtarn Shinawatra tries to bolster her coalition, she could face a court challenge from Thai senators and planned street protests

Thailand’s besieged Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra scrambled on Saturday to shore up her wobbling coalition after a leaked phone call drove defections from her government and rekindled resentments against her family, threatening to end her time in office after less than a year.

Compounding her woes, Paetongtarn is set to face a court challenge from Thai senators and planned street protests demanding her ouster.

Thailand’s youngest ever leader at 38 and the daughter of divisive two-time leader Thaksin Shinawatra was forced to apologise after a call with Cambodia’s former leader Hun Sen was leaked amid an increasingly tense border stand-off.

In the call, Paetongtarn addressed Hun Sen as “uncle” and appeared to criticise a senior Thai military officer, in a country where the powerful military has carried out a dozen coups and draws on a well of nationalist support.

Key coalition partner Bhumjaithai has left the government over the apparent failure by the prime minister to defend Thailand’s interests. Another partner in the coalition – United Thai Nation Party – is threatening to abandon the administration unless she resigns.

Meanwhile, a petition from the Senate has been submitted to the Constitutional Court and the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) to have her removed from her post over the revelations in the call.

The court has taken out a string of leaders in the last 20 years, including Srettha Thavisin in August last year. This paved the way for Paetongtarn, a political newcomer, to step up for the coalition-leading Pheu Thai Party.

More ominously, veteran leaders of Thailand’s opposing protest movements have also come together to demand the prime minister’s resignation, threatening street rallies from next Saturday.

They include Sondhi Limthongkul – whose mass ‘yellow shirt’ protests helped topple Thaksin Shinawatra in 2006 – and Jatuporn Prompan, a former leader of the Shinawatra-allied ‘red shirts’ movement, who has turned against the political clan he once defended.

“It’s too early to say how large the protests will get – the demonstrations so far before the Cambodia crisis have not been very large, but the leaked phone call could change things,” said Ken Lohatepanont, a PhD candidate in political science at the University of Michigan.

Paetongtarn’s more immediate peril might come from her coalition government losing its majority power and being “forced out due to a parliamentary collapse or a legal case” than from demonstrations, he added.

20 years of chaos

Supporters of the prime minister have rallied around her, saying pressure for her to stand down or dissolve parliament will only put Thailand further back, triggering political chaos that could lead to yet another coup.

Her government has struggled to spur growth in the trade-dependent country and failed to live up to the economic track record of previous administrations under Thaksin Shinawatra. In addition, she was forced to scrap a cash handouts scheme as Washington’s sweeping tariffs threaten further pain for Thailand’s anaemic economy.

Paetongtarn travelled to the border area of Ubon Ratchatani in damage limitation mode on Friday, where she thanked the army “for working tirelessly to keep our people safe and protect our sovereignty”.

Tit-for-tat measures continued on Saturday against Cambodia, including Thailand imposing costly restrictions on its neighbour’s agricultural goods as Paetongtarn sought to put distance between herself and Hun Sen.

Known in Thailand for his close friendship with Thaksin Shinawatra, Hun Sen ruled Cambodia for over three decades before handing over power to his son, Hun Manet.

But it appears the wily Cambodian strongman has turned on the Shinawatra family and is stirring opposition against it on social media.

On Friday, he posted old photos of Paetongtarn visiting his residence and inspecting the bedroom where both Thaksin Shinawatra and his sister Yingluck – the latter of whom was ousted as prime minister in a 2014 coup – are believed to have stayed.

Coalition support ebbing

Bhumjaithai’s defection has slashed the majority margin of Paetongtarn’s coalition government in the 500-seat lower house.

With her parliamentary support falling, Paetongtarn’s options are narrowing, according to political analysts.

She may choose to battle through and hope to convince new smaller parties to join her coalition or offer United Thai Nation Party key seats to keep it on board. Otherwise, she will struggle to pass legislation and the budget when parliament reconvenes in July, which could trigger a no-confidence vote against her, analysts say.

While Paetongtarn’s woes are partly self-inflicted, they also stem from bottled-up resentments towards Thaksin Shinawatra, according to analysts. Her father is a former two-time prime minister who was toppled by a 2006 coup.

The elder Shinawatra’s power struggle with Thailand’s establishment has shaped the kingdom’s politics in the last two decades – an era defined by street protests, coups and short-lived civilian governments.

“Former allies and old enemies are bonding together over a shared enmity for Thaksin Shinawatra,” Lohatepanont said.

In 2008, Thaksin Shinawatra fled abroad to avoid jail for his corruption convictions.

He returned to Thailand in 2023 – seemingly rehabilitated in the eyes of the royalist elite who drove him out of power.

He then stitched together an uneasy coalition government, led by his family’s Pheu Thai Party alongside its former establishment rivals. Their aim was to block the progressive youth-focused Move Forward party – now People’s Party – from forming a government after its electrifying performance in the 2023 general election.

But Move Forward posed too great a threat to the establishment, which drove the courts to ban its leaders and dissolve the party.

Barely two years on, Thaksin Shinawatra’s apparent back room deal to forge a conservative coalition appears in tatters, with his daughter now battling for her political survival.

People’s Party leader Natthaphong Ruengpanyawut said Paetongtarn’s woes were the inevitable outcome of Pheu Thai making friends with the enemies of democracy.

“This comes after the earlier betrayal during the formation of the government of Pheu Thai which crossed ideological lines in the formation of the coalition,” he told reporters on Thursday.