(Another) Thai Coup Imminent?

Groundhog Day came late this year to the Land of Smiles.

Every blue moon — 1981, 1985, 1991, 2006, and 2014 most recently — it’s the same rigmarole: on whatever pretext, the army commandeers the state with vague promises to restore democracy at some unspecified future date.

Nothing much changes in the interim periods between coups, except a few well-connected elites get tossed out of the Big Club and the rest are allowed to go on getting richer.

Which is to say: it’s really not all that different from Our Sacred Democracy™ in America, but with slightly less compelling window-dressing and more in-your-face optics.

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The rumored coup of 2025 comes against the backdrop of a Thai-Cambodia border dispute over territory in eastern Thailand long claimed by each country as its own.

Via Khaosod English (emphasis added):

“The recent dispute was triggered in May after armed forces of Thailand and Cambodia briefly fired at each other in a relatively small “no man’s land” constituting territory along their border that both countries claim as their own…

The contesting claims stem largely from a 1907 map drawn under French colonial rule that was used to separate Cambodia from Thailand.

Cambodia has been using the map as a reference to claim territory, while Thailand has argued the map is inaccurate.”

In response, major Thai power player in exile and close China ally Thaksin Shinawatra’s daughter, Paetongtarn Shinawatra, current prime minister, was caught on a leaked phone call addressing former Cambodian PM and another Chinese proxy, Hun Sen, as “uncle,” a term of deference in Thai.

She also referred to the Thai commander handling the border clash as an “opponent,” enraging the ultra-powerful Thai military brass.

Via South China Morning Post (emphasis added):

“Paetongtarn Shinawatra’s coalition government in Thailand is teetering on the edge of collapse following the prime minister’s leaked phone call with former Cambodian leader Hun Sen, but observers are mixed on whether a feared military coup will occur.

In the leaked audio clip which emerged on Wednesday, Paetongtarn was heard addressing Hun Sen, a family friend, as “uncle” and appeared to dismiss a Thai military commander.

The clip has sparked outrage from quarters of the country’s ruling coalition, including the withdrawal of a key royalist partner group of Paetongtarn’s Pheu Thai party, as well as calls for her to resign…

Prem Singh Gill, a visiting scholar at the Muhammadiyah University of Yogyakarta’s faculty of law, said… that a coup was “increasingly likely in the immediate term”, noting that the leaked audio had created a perfect juridical pretext for military intervention under Thailand constitutional framework.

“Paetongtarn’s characterisation of the 2nd Army Area Commander as the ‘opposing side’ constitutes what legal scholars would classify as seditious speech against state institutions,” Gill warned, adding it could also be seen as a textbook violation of her oath of office.”

As one might expect, the Thai military, which at all times exercises near-hegemonic authority even in the periods of nominal democratic rule, took none too kindly to having the prime minister undercut its legitimacy to a foreign adversary in the middle of a border dispute.

Barring some intervention by the Grand Palace, all signs point to Humvees in the streets… again.

Benjamin Bartee, author of Broken English Teacher: Notes From Exile (now available in paperback), is an independent Bangkok-based American journalist with opposable thumbs.

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