Thai PM meets army commander in attempt to defuse political crisis
BANGKOK: Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra held make-up talks on Friday (Jun 20) with an army commander she criticised in a leaked phone call as she struggled to defuse a crisis threatening to topple her government.
The daughter of controversial billionaire ex-prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, and in office for less than a year, Paetongtarn is facing calls to quit or announce an election as anger flares over the call with former Cambodian leader Hun Sen.
Her main coalition partner, the conservative Bhumjaithai party, pulled out on Wednesday, saying she had insulted the country and the army and leaving her government on the point of collapse.
She suffered another blow on Friday as reports emerged that another coalition partner was threatening to quit unless she stepped down as prime minister.
The crisis has sent the Thai stock market plunging to a five-year low and comes as the kingdom struggles to fire up its sluggish economy, with United States President Donald Trump's threatened trade tariffs looming.
Paetongtarn, 38, visited troops in northeast Thailand on Friday to patch things up with Lieutenant General Boonsin Padklang after she was caught disparaging him as an "opponent" during the call with Hun Sen.
Boonsin commands Thai forces along the border with Cambodia, where a long-running dispute flared into deadly clashes last month, and Paetongtarn's criticism of him drew accusations of disloyalty from right-wing nationalist critics.
Paetongtarn said after their meeting that the matter was settled.
"It went very well. I've spoken to the commander and there's no longer any issue," she told reporters.
For his part, Boonsin said: "Everything is normal".
ULTIMATUM
The meeting with Boonsin followed a public apology from Paetongtarn - at a news conference flanked by military and police chiefs - on Thursday as pressure on her mounted.
Paetongtarn was criticised as being weak and deferential in the call with Hun Sen, a veteran politician known as a wily operator, but her comments about the army commander were potentially the most damaging to her.
Thailand's armed forces have long played a powerful role in the kingdom's politics, and politicians are usually careful not to antagonise them.
The apology and apparent reconciliation with the army commander may not be enough to save Paetongtarn's premiership.
The departure of Bhumjaithai has left the government's coalition with a razor-thin majority in parliament, and losing another partner would likely see it collapse.
There was a glimmer of good news for Paetongtarn on Friday morning as the conservative Democrat Party pledged to stay in the coalition.
However, public broadcaster ThaiPBS reported that the United Thai Nation (UTN) party, which has 36 seats and is now the biggest party in the coalition after Pheu Thai, is considering quitting.
The broadcaster said UTN was going to issue an ultimatum to Paetongtarn: either she quits as premier or they withdraw, bringing down the government.
There are also suggestions of a split within UTN, but the government's majority is now so small that it could be fatal even if only half the party's MPs leave.
PROTEST THREAT
Paetongtarn may also be facing the prospect of street protests, as political activists involved in huge demonstrations that helped sink previous leaders linked to her family called for her to go.
The activists have called for a rally in central Bangkok on Saturday and another on Jun 28, although it remains to be seen whether Paetongtarn will survive that long.
She took office in August last year at the head of an uneasy alliance between Pheu Thai and a group of conservative, pro-military parties whose members have spent much of the past 20 years battling against her father.
Thaksin, twice elected prime minister, was thrown out in a military coup in 2006, and the bitter tussle between the conservative, royalist establishment and the political movement he founded has dominated Thai politics throughout that time.
Hun Sen, Cambodia's longtime ruler who stepped down in 2023 and had close ties with Thaksin, said on Friday that the row over the leaked call had "shattered" more than "30 years of heartfelt bonds between our two families".
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Straits Times
an hour ago
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Thai PM Paetongtarn Shinawatra, accompanied by Lieutenant-General Boonsin Padklang, whom she had disparaged in the leaked phone call, visiting an army base near the Cambodian border on June 20. PHOTO: REUTERS - It was an undignified breach of diplomatic protocol and personal confidence between world leaders that arguably has no clear precedent – at least in terms of its power to embarrass, and potentially unseat, a sitting government. The damaging leak of her 17-minute phone conversation with Cambodian senate president Hun Sen has left Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra clinging to a crumbling ruling coalition, her position written off as untenable by most political analysts. Mr Hun Sen , Cambodia's former strongman leader, in recording the conversation and then disseminating the audio clip, likely had domestic political calculations at the front of his mind, analysts say. These include bolstering the position of his son and current prime minister Hun Manet and, amid rising nationalist sentiment, demonstrating that his country remained uncowed in its renewed military spat along the border it shares with its larger neighbour. But in tipping Ms Paetongtarn's Pheu Thai Party-led government into turmoil, unwittingly or otherwise, Mr Hun Sen's actions are likely to invite a more assertive posture from Thailand following the brief border skirmish on May 28 that saw one Cambodian soldier killed. 'The Pheu Thai government, if it does remain in power, is now boxed in when it comes to Cambodia: it can no longer afford to be seen as weak and deferential to Hun Sen and Hun Manet,' said Mr Ken Lohatepanont, a political analyst and doctoral candidate at the University of Michigan. 'I would expect that the military will now have greater latitude to pursue its desired course of action in the future,' he added. Dr Thitinan Pongsudhirak, a political science professor at Chulalongkorn University, said it was now tantamount to the Thai army being given 'a blank cheque' to manage the border dispute how it saw fit, after Ms Paetongtarn, the daughter of former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, had previously been seen by critics as being too soft on the issue. 'Thailand is now at risk of escalating the border dispute because of Paetongtarn's mistake,' he said. On June 20, Ms Paetongtarn travelled to an army base near the Cambodian border in a show of support for Thai troops, accompanied by the region's army commander, Lt-Gen Boonsin Padklang, whom she had disparaged in the leaked phone call with Mr Hun Sen. Her trip came as conservative pro-monarchist groups, including supporters of the 'yellow-shirt' movement that protested against Mr Thaksin when he was in office, said they planned to intensify demonstrations demanding Ms Paetongtarn's resignation. It was also made as the conservative United Thai Nation Party was reported by local media on June 20 as being poised to quit the government – which would tip the ruling coalition into a parliamentary minority – unless Ms Paetongtarn stepped down, after just 10 months as prime minister. The 38-year-old political novice assumed power in August 2024 at the head of an uneasy post-election coalition between her Pheu Thai Party and a clutch of pro-military parties which were part of the conservative establishment whose distrust and rivalry with Mr Thaksin's political movement had dominated Thailand's political landscape for much of the past two decades. It remains unclear how an initial excerpt of the leaked June 15 call first surfaced online and then was swiftly picked up by Cambodian and Thai media outlets. Mr Hun Sen denied leaking the audio, but was quick to confirm its veracity. He said in a social media post that the call with Ms Paetongtarn had been recorded 'to avoid any misunderstandings' and that he had shared the audio clip with about 80 Cambodian officials. He subsequently posted the full recording to his official Facebook page on June 18. In the call, Ms Paetongtarn is heard pleading with the former Cambodian leader to help resolve border tensions between the two South-east Asian nations that she said were proving damaging to her government. Addressing Mr Hun Sen as 'uncle', Ms Paetongtarn appeared to blame the Thai army for inflaming tensions and referred to them as 'the opposite side'. She urged Mr Hun Sen to ignore comments from Lt-Gen Boonsin, who she said merely wanted to 'appear cool'. Ms Paetongtarn initially said her words were merely part of a 'negotiation tactic' but on June 19 issued a public apology for her remarks and slammed Mr Hun Sen for recording the call without her knowledge and leaking it. 'In diplomatic protocol terms, leaking a phone call like this is obviously a breach of the privacy that you would expect between leaders,' said Ms Susannah Patton, the director of the South-east Asia Programme at the Lowy Institute, an Australian think tank. 'That being said, Paetongtarn was definitely naive not to foresee that it could be revealed in some way,' she noted. 'The deferential form of address to Hun Sen, the appearance of selling out her own army commander, and repeated calls on Cambodia to de-escalate which made her look weak – it's very damaging,' Ms Patton added. Mr Hun Sen's actions are likely to be especially galling to the Shinawatra clan, given the long and close association between the two political families. Mr Hun Sen was the first foreign leader to visit Mr Thaksin in February 2024, following the latter's return to Bangkok after a 15-year self-imposed exile. 'Hun Sen is answerable to Cambodian public pressure. He needed to take the Thai army to task, and in doing so, he has spun this gambit with Paetongtarn,' said Dr Thitinan. 'He's willing to burn that relationship (with the Shinawatras) to get what he wants for domestic consumption,' he added. As the army commander in charge of Thailand's border response with Cambodia, Lt-Gen Boonsin has cultivated a high profile with his bellicose remarks towards opposing troops. In an interview with local news outlet The Standard published prior to his meeting with Ms Paetongtarn on June 20, he urged the Prime Minister to be 'mindful' and to support the national interest in dealing with the border dispute. 'Any reconciliation is likely to only occur at the surface level,' Mr Lohatepanont said of the pair's meeting. 'The call's contents revealed very clearly that Pheu Thai does not trust the military, but having it revealed so publicly ironically ensures that they will now have to be deferential to the military,' he said. Philip Wen is regional correspondent at The Straits Times, covering South-east Asia from his base in Bangkok. Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
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