Analysis: Thailand's Search for a New Premier After Srettha Thavisin Removal

TaiwanPlus News

Thailand's parliament is set to meet on Friday morning to vote for a new prime minister. Real estate tycoon and political newcomer Srettha Thavisin was dismissed by the Constitutional Court for an ethics violation on Wednesday after less than a year in the country's top post. TaiwanPlus speaks with Punchada Sirivunnabood from the Faculty of Social Science and Humanities at Mahidol University.

Transcript

00:00Thailand's ruling political party, Pathai, has chosen Phetthongthong Shinawatra as their

00:06candidate to be the next leader of the country.

00:09That's after Thailand's top court removed the party's Seta Thavasingh as prime minister,

00:14saying the real estate tycoon broke ethics rules by appointing a convict to the cabinet.

00:19The dismissal adds to ruling political drama in Thailand, and a new leader must now be

00:24voted in from the pool of candidates from last year's election.

00:28For more on Thailand's search for a new leader, Joi Tseng speaks with political scientist

00:33Puchada Sirivannabut in Bangkok.

00:37With the Pathai party's Seta Thavasingh now removed as prime minister, what is the process

00:42for Thailand to choose its new leader, and how soon can we expect for this to happen?

00:48This is kind of surprising because we thought that it's going to take some time, but it

00:53seems like Pathai party, you know, call all the member of MP and also other political

01:00party in the coalition government to meet with Thak Sentinawat yesterday at night.

01:06It's kind of emergency because, you know, most of the Pathai parties and Seta himself,

01:11I think they thought that they are going to survive, and Seta can continue to be in power.

01:17Tomorrow at 10 o'clock, they call for the parliament meeting to select and to vote for

01:23the prime minister.

01:24Pathai want to put forward a lot of policy at this time, for example, the digital wallet,

01:30the soft power policy, and also the 400 baht for the, you know, the new labor wage.

01:37And they're trying to push all this kind of policy as soon as possible.

01:40And what are Pathai's chances at keeping the top seat?

01:43For tomorrow meeting, I think Pathai will definitely control the seat for Chai Kasem

01:50because Pathai got a large number of seats.

01:53I don't think that there are going to be any problem.

01:56I think Pathai can also negotiate with other political party as well, and also the pro-military

02:03political parties.

02:05Prime Minister Seta's dismissal is the second major constitutional court ruling in just

02:10two weeks.

02:11The court also ordered the anti-establishment Move Forward Party, which won last year's

02:16elections, general elections, to disband.

02:19What do you make of these decisions and the direction for Thai politics?

02:24You know, Seta and Move Forward Party should not be dissolved by the court because, you

02:31know, they were in power because they get a large number of support and support from

02:38the people.

02:39For the Move Forward, they got elected and they got a large number of seats by, you know,

02:44a large number of voters across Thailand.

02:47The same as Seta, you know, he became the prime minister because he was dominated by

02:53the party that, you know, I would say they have a chance to form the coalition government

02:58and they won the second largest parties in the last election.

03:03These politicians, they are from the people, they are the representative of the people.

03:08So if you can have some kind of court to do whatever, you know, to disband them or to

03:14kick them out of the politics, I don't think it's a good thing for the democratic development

03:19in the long run.

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