Thailand’s Constitutional Court Friday ousted suspended Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra after ruling she engaged in ethical misconduct over a controversial phone call with Cambodia’s former leader and current Senate President, Hun Sen.
In a 6-3 decision, the court said the 39-year-old had put her private interest before those of the nation and damaged the country’s reputation in a leaked June phone call with Hun Sen, in which she appeared to kowtow. The suspension came as the neighbors teetered on the brink of a border conflict.
Clashes erupted weeks later for five days, leaving dozens reported dead.
Paetongtarn, who was the country’s youngest premier, is the sixth leader from or backed by the billionaire Shinawatra family to be pushed out by Thailand’s military or judiciary, extending a tumultuous two-decade power struggle between the nation’s entrenched rival camps.
She is the fifth prime minister removed by the courts in 17 years.
The premiership remains in flux, with Paetongtarn’s Pheu Thai Party losing bargaining power as her father, former prime minister and tycoon Thaksin Shinawatra, seen as the party’s patriarch and power broker, faces legal troubles of his own.
Deputy Prime Minister Phumtham Wechayachai, who has served in her place since the suspension, will stay on until parliament elects a new leader, a process with no set deadline.
Cambodian political analyst Em Sovannara said the ouster was unlikely to bring major political change in Thailand, where the monarchy, military and courts continue to wield outsized influence over the executive.
He added that until a new prime minister is chosen, his main focus would be on whether the next leader can ease tensions and repair ties between Bangkok and Phnom Penh.
Cambodian government spokesperson Pen Bona declined to comment, saying the ethics ruling was an internal Thai matter.
As of Friday evening, Cambodian leaders, including Prime Minister Hun Manet and his father Hun Sen, who was a central figure in the episode that led to Paetongtarn’s ouster, had yet to comment publicly.
