Embattled Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra faced the prospect of losing her government’s majority yesterday, as a vital coalition partner looked set to demand her resignation and senators launched a legal bid to remove her from office.
Paetongtarn, the politically inexperienced daughter of divisive tycoon and former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, is fighting fires on multiple fronts, struggling to breathe life into a stagnant economy facing steep US tariffs and under pressure to take a tougher stand on a territorial row with Cambodia that has seen their troops mobilize at the border.
The United Thai Nation Party (UTN), the second-largest partner in her alliance, is to demand Paetongtarn, 38, step down as a condition for it to remain in the Pheu Thai Party-led coalition, two UTN sources said, requesting anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.
Photo: EPA-EFE
“If she doesn’t resign, the party would leave the government,” one source said. “We want the party leader to tell the prime minister as a courtesy.”
Although Paetongtarn received a boost yesterday with another coalition partner, the Democrat Party, pledging its support, Thailand’s youngest premier is still in an untenable position, with her majority hinging on UTN staying in the alliance following Wednesday’s exit by the larger Bhumjaithai Party.
It is unclear when UTN would announce its position, and a spokesperson said the party would wait for its leader to inform the prime minister of its decision.
Paetongtarn’s battle to stay in power demonstrates the declining strength of Pheu Thai, the populist juggernaut of the billionaire Shinawatra family that has dominated Thai elections since 2001.
However, Paetongtarn is facing domestic anger and the prospect of an internal revolt over Wednesday’s embarrassing leak of a phone call between her and former Cambodian prime minister Hun Sen — once seen as a Shinawatra family ally — which her critics say posed a threat to Thailand’s sovereignty and integrity.
During the conversation, Paetongtarn called for a peaceful resolution of the border dispute and disparaged an outspoken Thai army general who she said “just wants to look cool,” a red line in a country where the military has a high profile and significant political clout.
Pressure mounted yesterday from outside her government, with 69 senators petitioning the Thai Constitutional Court and an anti-graft agency over the phone conversation leak, seeking a determination and an investigation, respectively, into whether Paetongtarn breached leadership moral standards.
Activists also met yesterday to schedule a major protest in Bangkok starting on Saturday next week to demand Paetongtarn resign, among them groups with a history of crippling rallies against Shinawatra administrations.
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