Thailand’s Constitutional Court has removed Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin from office for appointing a minister with a criminal conviction, throwing the country into renewed political turmoil.
Judge Punya Udchachon, reading the ruling on Wednesday, said the court voted 5-4 to remove Srettha, whose appointment of former lawyer Pichit Chuenban, jailed for six months in 2008 after a contempt of court conviction, fell short of official moral and ethical standards.
The court ruling follows a petition submitted by 40 senators that called on the court to remove Srettha from office over the appointment. Judges in May accepted the petition but said Srettha could remain in his post while the issue was investigated.
Pichit resigned from his role as a minister in the Prime Minister’s Office on Tuesday in a bid to protect Srettha.
The real estate tycoon is the fourth Thai prime minister in 16 years to be removed by verdicts of the same court.
Srettha, who did not attend court, told reporters after the ruling that he had not anticipated the decision.
“I respect the verdict. I reiterate that for the almost one year I have been in this role, I have tried with good intentions to lead the country with honesty,” he said.
Srettha’s removal after less than a year in power means parliament must convene to choose a new prime minister, with the prospect of more uncertainty in a country dogged for 20 years by coups and court rulings that have brought down multiple governments and forced political parties to dissolve.
Rivalries
Deputy Prime Minister Phumtham Wechayachai is expected to take over as the caretaker prime minister with parliament due to convene on Friday to pick a replacement for Srettha.
The Constitutional Court last week dissolved the anti-establishment Move Forward Party, the hugely popular opposition, after ruling its campaign to reform a law against insulting the crown risked undermining the constitutional monarchy. MFP, which won the most seats in last year’s election but was blocked from forming a government, regrouped under a new name.
Srettha’s Pheu Thai Party and its predecessors have borne the brunt of Thailand’s turmoil, with two of its governments removed by coups in a long-running rivalry between the party’s founders – the billionaire Shinawatra family – and the conservative establishment and royalist military.
The decision could rock a fragile truce between influential former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and his rivals, which enabled the tycoon’s return from 15 years of self-exile in 2023 and for Srettha to become prime minister the same day.
A Pheu Thai official said the party would meet on Thursday to decide its candidate for prime minister. “We are the biggest party in the government,” its secretary-general, Sorawong Thienthong, told the Reuters news agency.
Only those nominated by the party as a prime ministerial candidate for the 2023 election are eligible, with Thaksin’s 37-year-old daughter and party leader Paetongtarn Shinawatra among Pheu Thai’s options.
If successful, she would be Thailand’s third Shinawatra prime minister after Thaksin and her aunt, Yingluck Shinawatra.
Other potential candidates include Interior Minister Anutin Charnvirakul, Energy Minister Pirapan Salirathavibhaga and Prawit Wongsuwan, an influential former army chief who was involved in the last two coups.
