Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra was sacked from office on Friday by the country’s constitution court over a leaked phone call with Cambodia’s Senate President Hun Sen.
The court ruled that as the country’s leader, she violated constitutional rules on ethics in the phone call case, reported Associatedd Press. The ruling implies that the Shinawatra heiress loses her job, for which she was elected a year ago.
She was suspended from her duties on July 1 when the court agreed to hear the case against her, and Deputy Prime Minister Phumtham Wechayachai took over her responsibilities.
The June 15 phone call, which sparked nationwide outrage in Thailand, was aimed at easing tensions over competing claims to territory along their border.
Protests erupted against Paetongtarn for her seemingly overly friendly tone in discussing a matter of national security and appeared to malign a Thai army general.
The phone call recording was leaked online by Hun Sen, who was Cambodia’s prime minister for 38 years until his son Hun Manet took over the job in 2023.
The phone call took place amid long-standing tensions over the border that heightened after a Cambodian soldier was killed in a brief incident of violence in disputed territory in May.
In June, the two South East Asian neighbours engaged in five days of combat that killed dozens of people and displaced more than 260,000.
The court judgment could bring more trouble for the ruling coalition led by Paetongtarn’s Pheu Thai party. The Bhumjaithai Party, the biggest partner of Pheu Thai, had already backed out from the coalition following the leaked phone call controversy, leaving the coalition to walk on a tight rope in the House of Representatives.
The dismissal is also a blow to the political machine of Paetongtarn’s father, former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted from power by a 2006 military coup but has managed to remain a dominant force in Thai politics through proxy parties.
