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.
LONG FLIGHT: The jets would be flown by US pilots, with Taiwanese copilots in the two-seat F-16D variant to help familiarize them with the aircraft, the source said The US is expected to fly 10 Lockheed Martin F-16C/D Block 70/72 jets to Taiwan over the coming months to fulfill a long-awaited order of 66 aircraft, a defense official said yesterday. Word that the first batch of the jets would be delivered soon was welcome news to Taiwan, which has become concerned about delays in the delivery of US arms amid rising military tensions with China. Speaking on condition of anonymity, the official said the initial tranche of the nation’s F-16s are rolling off assembly lines in the US and would be flown under their own power to Taiwan by way
CHIP WAR: The new restrictions are expected to cut off China’s access to Taiwan’s technologies, materials and equipment essential to building AI semiconductors Taiwan has blacklisted Huawei Technologies Co (華為) and Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯), dealing another major blow to the two companies spearheading China’s efforts to develop cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI) chip technologies. The Ministry of Economic Affairs’ International Trade Administration has included Huawei, SMIC and several of their subsidiaries in an update of its so-called strategic high-tech commodities entity list, the latest version on its Web site showed on Saturday. It did not publicly announce the change. Other entities on the list include organizations such as the Taliban and al-Qaeda, as well as companies in China, Iran and elsewhere. Local companies need
CRITICISM: It is generally accepted that the Straits Forum is a CCP ‘united front’ platform, and anyone attending should maintain Taiwan’s dignity, the council said The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday said it deeply regrets that former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) echoed the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) “one China” principle and “united front” tactics by telling the Straits Forum that Taiwanese yearn for both sides of the Taiwan Strait to move toward “peace” and “integration.” The 17th annual Straits Forum yesterday opened in Xiamen, China, and while the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) local government heads were absent for the first time in 17 years, Ma attended the forum as “former KMT chairperson” and met with Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference Chairman Wang Huning (王滬寧). Wang
CROSS-STRAIT: The MAC said it barred the Chinese officials from attending an event, because they failed to provide guarantees that Taiwan would be treated with respect The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) on Friday night defended its decision to bar Chinese officials and tourism representatives from attending a tourism event in Taipei next month, citing the unsafe conditions for Taiwanese in China. The Taipei International Summer Travel Expo, organized by the Taiwan Tourism Exchange Association, is to run from July 18 to 21. China’s Taiwan Affairs Office spokeswoman Zhu Fenglian (朱鳳蓮) on Friday said that representatives from China’s travel industry were excluded from the expo. The Democratic Progressive Party government is obstructing cross-strait tourism exchange in a vain attempt to ignore the mainstream support for peaceful development
RSS