Thailand: In the driver’s seat

Paetongtarn Shinawatra, Thailand’s newly minted prime minister and its youngest-ever leader, is taking the wheel of government days after the country’s Constitutional Court stripped Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin of power, citing an ethical violation.

But some wonder whether her father, former PM Thaksin Shinawatra, a populist and lighting rod in Thai politics, will be doing some back-seat driving after he just received a royal pardon to get him off the hook for his corruption conviction.

The court’s 5-4 decision on Aug. 14 to remove Thavisin as head of a coalition government led by Pheu Thai, the party associated with the Shinawatra family, was the second blow it dealt to hopes for the full restoration of democracy in Thailand after nearly a decade of military rule. 

The ruling followed an equally controversial one from a week earlier, when the judges on the bench unanimously disbanded the opposition Move Forward Party and banned its top leaders from politics for 10 years. The court deemed that Move Forward, which won the most parliamentary seats in the 2023 general election, had committed treason by campaigning on a pledge to undo lèse-majesté, a strict anti-defamation law shielding the powerful monarchy from criticism.