'Thailand is an autocracy: The system is loaded against progressive parties'

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00:00Over in Thailand, a first step to deposing the prime minister.

00:06Pétang Tharn Shinawath suspended over that leaked phone call last month

00:12where critics say the daughter of former prime minister Thaksin Shinawath

00:16had been too deferential to former Cambodian leader Hun Sen.

00:25The two had been talking about a border dispute

00:27where she appears to disparage her own generals.

00:30Well, for more, let's cross to David Cameron,

00:33senior researcher, adjunct professor at the French political science institute Sciences Po.

00:40They're going through the motions here, it seems, towards this destitution.

00:45The writing seems on the wall.

00:50The writing has been on the wall since she was appointed as prime minister.

00:54In Thailand, the prime minister is appointed not just by the lower House of Parliament,

00:59parties that have got a majority, but also by the Senate.

01:02And the Senate is appointed essentially by the military and by royalist forces.

01:08So she came to power after kind of a double betrayal.

01:12The first betrayal was in the elections of May 2023, where she broke off with her partner,

01:21the Move Forward Party, a progressive party representing young people.

01:26And she allied herself with the military royalist political parties.

01:32But she didn't become prime minister then.

01:35It was number two in her party.

01:37But it wasn't long before the constitutional court intervened to have him dismissed.

01:43And she took over at that point.

01:46And so there's something sort of kind of,

01:49there's a bit of poetic justice in what is happening to her.

01:53At this point in time, the irony is it happens the same day that her father was also appearing in court.

02:00Yes, well, the deal was with the royalists when she betrayed the Move Forward Party,

02:07that her father would be allowed back from exile.

02:10And her aunt, who was also a prime minister and also being dismissed by the constitutional court.

02:16So that was the deal.

02:18But Taksim, when he returned, started to become far too active.

02:22I tried to intervene about Cambodia, but also about Myanmar and didn't remain quiet.

02:28So there was a sense in which she betrayed, well, the deal with the military, the royalists, had not been fulfilled.

02:38And also her populist policies that she had to abandon, which are the basis for her red shirt support,

02:47especially in the north of Thailand for the Pew Thai Party,

02:51sat very uncomfortably with the conservative orientation with her coalition partners.

02:57So, you know, she's already had to abandon those policies.

03:01And it was only a matter of time before she herself would be,

03:06would find herself under the eye of the constitutional court.

03:09Last Sunday, there were demonstrations in Bangkok of about 10,000 people.

03:16And, you know, they were very nasty about her in those demonstrations.

03:19There was a, you know, there was a poster with the sign on the poster that said,

03:24you're just a lucky, the product of a lucky sperm.

03:27I mean, this sort of rejection of the, you know, the Taksim family, so to speak, and dynastic politics.

03:34And also the fact that she's a woman.

03:35There's also something a bit misogynist in all this,

03:38given that the royalists are somewhat, you know, patriarchal in their worldview.

03:44So, from what you're saying, it doesn't sound like there's likely to be another coup,

03:51because the establishment that has deposed her seems to hold all the cards already.

03:59Well, they do with the constitutional court and all of the legal system.

04:03My colleague Eugénie Miriot has written a great deal about this,

04:06about the lawfare of Thailand.

04:08So, people are dismissed through constitutional or through legal processes.

04:12Yes, the royalists hold the cards.

04:15The Move Forward Party, her former ally, has been banned,

04:19and some of its leaders have been banned from political life for several years.

04:24It's the usual process in Thailand.

04:27There's certainly probably not the need for another coup,

04:30well, seen from the royalists' perspective, at this moment.

04:33And, David Cameron, this all began, again, with that leaked telephone call,

04:38which sort of reignited or stoked those border tensions.

04:45What's the latest between Thailand and Cambodia right now?

04:49Well, things are relatively calm.

04:53You know, this is not the first time there have been those border disputes.

04:56It goes back to the Franco-Siamese Treaty at the end of the 19th, early 20th century.

05:02And the border is basically about the land around a temple.

05:08So, that has never been resolved in the courts.

05:12And so, periodically, there are these incidents.

05:16They seem to be managed relatively well by the Thai military and the Cambodian counterbust.

05:22Neither side has got an interest in there being a conflict.

05:25However, this time around, it's the migrant workers from Cambodia in Thailand are suffering,

05:32because some of them are fleeing and have to return to Cambodia.

05:36So, it has sort of notched up, gone up a notch, so to speak,

05:40compared to previous incidents around the disputed border and around the temple.

05:46At this point in time, if you're right now one of the opposition parties in Thailand, what do you do?

05:55You just sit things out?

05:59You set things out and you hope that there will be new elections, but that won't solve the problem.

06:07I mean, there has to be a return.

06:09You know, Thailand is a semi-democracy.

06:11It's an autocracy.

06:12And the system is loaded against progressive parties.

06:18And so, unless there's a change of constitution, for example, the courts do become independent again,

06:26that the Senate loses this crushing power that it has,

06:29then the same cycle will recur again where the democratic aspirations of the Thai people are not being met

06:41because of the conservative establishment around the king

06:45who just put a kind of a, you know, suffocate these democratic aspirations.

06:51David Camroo, many thanks for speaking with us here on France 24.

06:57My pleasure.

06:58Thank you, sir.

06:59Thank you, sir.

07:00Thank you, sir.

07:01Thank you, sir.

07:02Thank you, sir.

07:03Thank you, sir.

07:04Thank you, sir.

07:05Thank you, sir.

07:06Thank you, sir.

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