The Constitutional Court suspended Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra, the heiress of the dynasty that has polarized Thailand for more than twenty years on Tuesday, opening up a new period of uncertainties.
The judges decided by a majority of seven against two to suspend the government’s head of the government, accused by conservative senators of having violated the “ethical standards” required in the Constitution to occupy its role.
The future of the youngest Prime Minister that the Kingdom has known, 38, is dotted to the time of the deliberations of the Court, which can last weeks or even months. Deputy Prime Minister Suriya Jungrungreangkit will take over in his absence, according to local media.
“I accept the court’s decision,” said Paetongtarn.
“I want to reaffirm that I have always intended to act for the best for my country,” she continued. “I would like to apologize to Thai people who feel frustration.”
Since the 2000s, repeated political unrest has been shaking the second economy of Southeast Asia, but the current crisis has come in the middle of the American customs offensive, which has put the government in front of crucial decisions.
“As a friendly neighbor, we hope that Thailand will maintain its stability and its development,” said a spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry.
– “Critical dilution” –
The next few weeks promise to be also decisive for the Shinawatra clan, which will play its political survival before courts which, in the past, have condemned its most influential members, and dissolved their affiliated parties. The trial for the majesty of the Patriarch Thaksin also opened on Tuesday.
According to political analyst Thitinan Pongsudhirak, there is a direct and undeniable link between the two cases, the brand of the Shinawatra family being confronted with a “critical dilution”.
The Shinawatra dynasty, welded around the billionaire Thaksin, has long embodied a counterweight to the conservative establishment aligned with the king and the army. From their opposition, two strokes of state, giant demonstrations, some repressed in the blood and a cascade of legal proceedings have resulted.
Third shinawatra to occupy the post of Prime Minister, after his father and aunt Yingluck, Paetongtarn was on an ejecting seat since the main support of his coalition slammed the door in June.
A telephone call with former Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, which he shared online without his interlocutor, set fire to the powder. In this interview, supposed to soothe tensions on the border, the leader compared a Thai general to an “opponent” and used a tone deemed too reverently vis-à-vis her elder.
His conservative rivals attacked him on his lack of grip and experience in this file conducive to patriotic overbidding, in which Thailand and Cambodia have been opposed for decades.
Despite its apologies, around thirty senators have filed a complaint with the Constitutional Court, believing that it has broken the “ethical standards”, vaguely formulated in the Constitution to occupy its role.
Last year, the Constitutional Court dismissed its predecessor Srettha Thavisin under the same article on integrity. The deliberations had lasted more than 80 days.
Tuesday morning, the king validated the expected reshuffle after the withdrawal of a party of the majority. In the new cabinet, Paetongtarn must occupy the post of Minister of Culture, but now, his presence seems compromised.
– Lèse majesté –
A figure of the main opposition party, Move Forward, called for elections, two years after the last.
“Paetongtarn has lost its moral authority,” Rangsiman Rome told AFP. “Dissolve the Assembly is the solution.”
At the same time opened the trial of lese majesty against Thaksin, in the presence of the interested party.
The former Prime Minister (2001-2006), aged 75, is accused of having insulted the king and his family in an interview published in a South Korean newspaper in 2015.
The hearings of his trial are scheduled throughout the month of July, and it will be necessary to wait at least a month further a verdict. The telecoms tycoon denies having made defamatory remarks.
Justice is used to having a heavy hand to enforce the law on lèse majesté, one of the most severe in the world, liable to fifteen years in prison.
Groups of lawyers and human rights militants have regularly criticized the instrumentalization of this law to gap critical voices of the monarchy and its allies.
In court, a dozen “red”-the pro-Thaksin, as opposed to the “yellow” supporters of the monarchy-came to support. “I came for the injustices he faced for so many years,” said Wanlee Iamcharat, a 79 -year -old retired physiotherapist.
