BANGKOK – A Thai court has ruled Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin breached ethical standards in his appointment of a convicted felon to his Cabinet, knocking the embattled premier from power after less than a year in office and thrusting Thai politics back into relative chaos.
The Constitutional Court judged Srettha’s appointment of Phichit Chuenban, jailed for trying to bribe court judges with money in a bag in an earlier case against ex-premier and ruling Peua Thai party patron Thaksin Shinawatra, warranted his dismissal even though Pichet had quickly stepped down.
Srettha was not in attendance at the court hearing, opting instead to visit a Bangkok street food market. Local media had widely reported Srettha was tipped to survive the verdict, though the premier’s influential legal advisor and constitutional expert had signaled on Tuesday that the ruling may go against him.
It’s unclear what role, if any, Thaksin played in the now fateful decision to push Phichit into Srettha’s reshuffled Cabinet – possibly as a deliberate poke at conservative rivals – but most of the aides, advisors and appointees surrounding political novice Srettha were known long-time Thaksin servants and loyalists and largely unknown to Srettha.
Deputy Prime Minister and Peua Thai stalwart Phumtham Wechayachai is expected to serve as caretaker prime minister until a parliamentary vote can be arranged on a new premier. Based on election rules, Peua Thai can put forward Thaksin’s daughter Paetongtarn Shinawatra or ailing former justice minister Chaikasem Nitisiri for premier.
Thaksin and his ex-wife, however, were known to be reluctant to put their unseasoned daughter, who was pregnant on the 2023 campaign trail and only recently appointed as Peua Thai’s leader, in the line of fire so early in her political career. That’s likely more the case now as the kingdom’s politics become even more volatile and uncertain.
What’s less known is whether Thaksin and Peua Thai leaders perceive the court decision against Srettha as a royal establishment warning against Thaksin’s overt politicking after receiving a royal pardon for criminal convictions, in which he managed to eschew spending a single day in proper prison on weak health grounds.
Srettha, often wearing a royalist yellow tie, presided over a coalition government forged in a deal ahead of last year’s election by Thaksin and palace officials in the name of national unity. That deal effectively brought Peua Thai and military parties together in a marriage of political convenience that sought to turn political foes into allies while bringing Thaksin home from 15 years of self-exile via what turned out to be a partial, not full, royal pardon.
Thaksin’s recent request to leave the kingdom for medical treatment in Dubai was denied by the courts as he awaits trial on a renewed lese majeste complaint over comments he made to media in 2016 Thaksin likely thought was buried by his royal pardon. Convictions under Thailand’s royal shield law allow for 15-year prison sentences.
Early bets thus favor Deputy Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul, leader of the coalition’s second-ranking Bhumjaithai party who currently serves as interior minister, to become the next prime minister. Anutin served as health minister under the previous Prayut Chan-ocha military-steered government and has self-professed personal ties to King Vajiralongkorn.
Scion of a construction conglomerate, Anutin is widely seen as the face of Thailand’s wild and wooly experiment with marijuana legalization, with big and shady proponents of the trade in his Buriram province-based party, and came under fire for his perceived hamfisted handling of Thailand’s vaccine procurement at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic.
While his Bhumjaithai shows more yellow-garbed conservative leg than it actually embodies, Anutin is now believed to be the candidate of choice for Bangkok’s conservative elite, which with the military-aligned Palang Pracharat and United Thai Nation parties’ abysmal showing at the 2023 poll lack a viable vehicle to electoral power.
Thaksin’s meeting with Anutin in July at a provincial golf course, exposed in local press reports, may in retrospect have already brokered the backroom deal to allow Anutin to assume the premiership despite Bhumjaithai’s second-ranking position in the coalition and the vast political and electoral advantages that come with leading government.
Thaksin had expressed his displeasure with Srettha’s performance and suggested he was expendable ahead of today’s ruling to one long-time diplomatic contact who spoke on condition of anonymity to Asia Times.
At the same time, some saw the palace’s unusual bestowal of royal decorations on Srettha ahead of Vajiralongkorn’s 72nd birthday celebrations last month as a tacit sign of royal approval of the premier’s even-keeled and deferential rule ahead of the Constitutional Court’s anticipated ruling.
The good-natured Srettha’s short tenure will be remembered mainly as ineffectual, due in large part to bureaucratic resistance that blocked the implementation of his digital wallet cash hand-out scheme and his inability – though not for trying – to galvanize big new foreign investor interest in the kingdom’s laggard economy.
Since Srettha took office last September, Thailand grew an anemic 1.9% in 2023, down from 2.5% in 2022, and lagging badly regional peers such as the Philippines, Malaysia and Vietnam which have enjoyed recent booms and benefitted from decoupling from China into Southeast Asia.
That economic underperformance has dented Peua Thai’s brand as the business-minded party of economic growth and revival, a reputation earned under Thaksin-backed parties dating back to his original Thai Rak Thai, which was elected back in 2001 on a “think new, act new” motto that now looks well past its sell date in sight of flagging opinion polls.
The ruling against Srettha follows last week’s Constitutional Court decision to ban the election-winning, new-generation Move Forward party, on grounds its campaign call to reform a royal defamation law was equivalent to trying to overthrow the constitutional monarchy with king as head of state.
Move Forward reconstituted under a new People’s Power party banner with new leadership the following day, minus 11 party executives including the popular prime ministerial candidate and ex-party leader Pita Limjaroenrat, all of whom were banned from politics for a decade.
The People’s Party, a titular nod to the name of a military party that overthrew the absolute monarchy in 1932, has vowed to maintain its hard push for monarchical, military and monopolist big business reform – in sharp contrast to Srettha’s status quo-protecting agenda that apparently wasn’t good enough for the kingdom’s conservative royalist elite.