Thailand’s Constitutional Court has removed Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra from office after ruling that she violated ethical standards during a phone call with former Cambodian leader Hun Sen.
It’s the fifth time in just over a decade that the court has dismissed a prime minister, and in each instance, the ousted leader has been tied to Paetongtarn’s father, former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. That pattern has only fueled the widespread belief that the nine-judge panel, appointed rather than elected, consistently acts in the interest of Thailand’s conservative and royalist establishment.
At the center of this case was a leaked conversation from June between Paetongtarn and Hun Sen, who has long been close to the Shinawatra family. In the call, criticized a senior Thai army commander. Hun Sen, angered after Paetongtarn described his government’s use of social media as “unprofessional,” leaked the conversation, calling her words an “unprecedented insult.”
Paetongtarn defended her remarks, insisting that she was attempting a diplomatic breakthrough and that the call should have remained private. But the leak was politically devastating. Her largest coalition partner walked out, leaving her clinging to a slim majority, and by July seven of the nine judges on the Constitutional Court had already voted to suspend her. Friday’s ruling made her removal official.
Paetongtarn is not alone in her fate. Her predecessor, Srettha Thavisin, was dismissed by the same court last year. Before him, three other Shinawatra-aligned leaders were pushed out in similar fashion. Over the same period, the court has dissolved 112 political parties, including earlier versions of Thaksin’s Pheu Thai Party and the reformist Move Forward movement, which actually won the most seats in the 2023 election before being disbanded.
That record has left many Thais skeptical of the judiciary’s claim to neutrality. Political life in Thailand is policed more heavily by judges than perhaps anywhere else, with the court exercising a veto over elected governments time and again.
Hun Sen’s leak did more than end Paetongtarn’s premiership—it escalated into a political and military crisis. Anger on both sides of the Thai-Cambodian border boiled over last month into a five-day war that left more than 40 people dead. In that climate, Paetongtarn’s conciliatory tone toward Hun Sen was seen as a liability.
The Thai constitution requires parliament to select a new prime minister from a limited slate of candidates pre-approved before the last election. Pheu Thai’s options are nearly exhausted. Its only remaining nominee, Chaikasem Nitisiri, is a veteran politician but in poor health and hardly a unifying figure. The alternative is Anutin Charnvirakul, a former interior minister whose Bhumjaithai Party abandoned the ruling coalition after the phone call scandal.
Meanwhile, the 143 lawmakers formerly aligned with the dissolved Move Forward party, now reorganized as the People’s Party, have pledged to stay in opposition until new elections are held.
Pheu Thai is reluctant to call such an election. After two years in power, it has little to show. Its signature “digital wallet” plan, promising to give every Thai adult a one-time payment of 10,000 baht, has stalled. Other initiatives, from casino legalization to an ambitious “land-bridge” infrastructure project, have gone nowhere.
For more than 20 years, the Shinawatra family was the dominant force in Thai politics, their populist appeal carrying them to repeated victories at the polls. But Paetongtarn’s removal shows just how much that grip has weakened.
Now, with her ouster and Pheu Thai’s fortunes in free fall, the once-unbeatable electoral machine built by Thaksin looks increasingly fragile. Whether the party can reinvent itself—or whether Thai voters are ready to move past the Shinawatras altogether—remains to be seen.
