Now-former Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra, seen here at the Pheu Thai Party’s headquarters in Bangkok, Thailand in August of 2024. The Thai Constitutional Court removed her from office Friday. File Photo by E EPA-EFE/RUNGROJ YONGRIT
Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra has been removed after a court ruled she had broken ethic rules in a phone call to a former leader of Cambodia.
Thailand’s Constitutional Court ruled Friday by a 6-3 margin that Paetongtam, who was suspended in July for speaking with former Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, “lacks the qualifications and possesses prohibited characteristics” under the Thai constitution, and is now out of office.
The leaked phone call responsible for her ouster happened in June during a time when Thailand and Cambodia were engaged in border clashes. She was overheard calling Hun Sen “uncle” and speaking against her own army’s actions at the border.
Paetongtarn also told Hun Sen that if he “wants anything, just tell me, and I will take care of it.”
The timing of the call stoked dissent in her country as the border clashes had brought about Nationalist enthusiasm.
Paetongtarn, daughter of former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and niece to former Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, was the nation’s youngest prime minister and had only served a year in office. She is the fifth Thai prime minister to be removed from office by the Constitutional Court since 2008.
