Former Thai premier Thaksin Shinawatra goes on trial for lese-majeste next week, with the kingdom teetering on the brink of political chaos, as his daughter faces being sacked as prime minister and activists threaten mass protests.
Thailand looks set for a new round of the turmoil that has periodically gripped it over the past two decades, as conservative forces renew their long-running tussle with the Shinawatra dynasty.
The coming weeks would see a series of court hearings that could terminate Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra’s brief political career and send her father to jail.
Photo: AFP
Thaksin goes on trial from Tuesday, accused of insulting the monarchy, which under Thailand’s strict royal defamation laws could bring a maximum 15-year jail sentence. The allegations stem from an interview he gave in 2015 to a South Korean newspaper.
The trial is set to last three weeks, and a verdict is not expected for at least a month after that.
The lese-majeste laws shield King Maha Vajiralongkorn and his close family from insult or abuse, but critics said the laws are abused to stifle legitimate comment and debate.
Paetongtarn’s government hangs by a thread. Its ruling coalition was slashed to a tiny majority by the departure last week of the conservative Bhumjaithai party in a row over a leaked phone call between the prime minister and former Cambodian prime minister Hun Sen.
In the audio of the call about the border dispute, Paetongtarn makes disparaging reference to a Thai army commander and addresses Hun Sen as “uncle.”
Critics slammed Paetongtarn for insulting the military — a powerful force in Thai politics — and for being too deferential, calling for her to quit.
She apologized last week and managed to shore up her coalition, but now a group of conservative senators has submitted a petition to the Thai constitutional court calling for her to be sacked.
The court might decide on Tuesday whether to accept the case, but court president Nakharin Mektrairat said that it would be up to the nine judges to decide the timeframe.
If the court accepts the case, it might suspend her from office while it considers it, with a ruling expected to take several months.
Paetongtarn’s case and her father’s trial are the latest round in a bitter 25-year arm wrestle between Thailand’s traditional conservative, pro-military, pro-royalist elite and parties linked to Thaksin.
Thaksin was twice elected prime minister in the early 2000s and is still loved by many of the rural voters whose lives were changed by his policies. However, the establishment has long despised him as corrupt, nepotistic and a threat to the kingdom’s long-established social order.
Thaksin was ousted in a coup in 2006, his sister Yingluck Shinawatra had the same fate in 2014 and other prime ministers from their political movement have been sacked by court rulings.
After 15 years abroad, Thaksin returned to Thailand in August 2023.
He was immediately ordered to serve an eight-year jail term for historic graft and abuse of power charges, but was taken to hospital on health grounds and later pardoned by the king.
IDENTITY: A sex extortion scandal involving Thai monks has deeply shaken public trust in the clergy, with 11 monks implicated in financial misconduct Reverence for the saffron-robed Buddhist monkhood is deeply woven into Thai society, but a sex extortion scandal has besmirched the clergy and left the devout questioning their faith. Thai police this week arrested a woman accused of bedding at least 11 monks in breach of their vows of celibacy, before blackmailing them with thousands of secretly taken photos of their trysts. The monks are said to have paid nearly US$12 million, funneled out of their monasteries, funded by donations from laypeople hoping to increase their merit and prospects for reincarnation. The scandal provoked outrage over hypocrisy in the monkhood, concern that their status
The United States Federal Communications Commission said on Wednesday it plans to adopt rules to bar companies from connecting undersea submarine communication cables to the US that include Chinese technology or equipment. “We have seen submarine cable infrastructure threatened in recent years by foreign adversaries, like China,” FCC Chair Brendan Carr said in a statement. “We are therefore taking action here to guard our submarine cables against foreign adversary ownership, and access as well as cyber and physical threats.” The United States has for years expressed concerns about China’s role in handling network traffic and the potential for espionage. The U.S. has
A disillusioned Japanese electorate feeling the economic pinch goes to the polls today, as a right-wing party promoting a “Japanese first” agenda gains popularity, with fears over foreigners becoming a major election issue. Birthed on YouTube during the COVID-19 pandemic, spreading conspiracy theories about vaccinations and a cabal of global elites, the Sanseito Party has widened its appeal ahead of today’s upper house vote — railing against immigration and dragging rhetoric that was once confined to Japan’s political fringes into the mainstream. Polls show the party might only secure 10 to 15 of the 125 seats up for grabs, but it is
The US Department of Education on Tuesday said it opened a foreign funding investigation into the University of Michigan (UM) while alleging it found “inaccurate and incomplete disclosures” in a review of the university’s foreign reports, after two Chinese scientists linked to the school were separately charged with smuggling biological materials into the US. As part of the investigation, the department asked the university to share, within 30 days, tax records related to foreign funding, a list of foreign gifts, grants and contracts with any foreign source, and other documents, the department said in a statement and in a letter to
RSS