🇹🇭🇰🇭 Paetongtarn's brief reprieve will end next week
🇲🇾 Syed Saddiq cleared
Hello friends!
An update here on where Thailand and Cambodia stand ahead of what will be a very busy week. Thailand could be looking at its third prime minister within a year, and Hun Sen says he knows who it’ll be but it’s his little secret.
And in Malaysia, unusually pleasant news with the acquittal of Syed Saddiq.
See you next week!
Erin Cook
🇹🇭🇰🇭 Paetongtarn on the ropes as Hun Sen gloats
Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra has survived June, but I’m not so sure about July.
The Bhumjaithai Party, which left the coalition last week kicking off serious fears the government would collapse, has another tactic at hand. It will launch a no-confidence motion against Paetongtarn’s leadership, Reuters reports.
Party spokeswoman Nan Boonthida Somchai told media on Tuesday that the party would move for a no-confidence motion when parliament reopens on July 3 — a week today. She noted the party has reached out to others in opposition, including the People's Party, Palang Pracharath, the Fair Party and Thai Sang Thai, to get involved, the Bangkok Post reports.
Over at Coffee Parliament, of course, Ken Lohatepanont digs into the speculation. Petitions to the Constitutional Court, the National Anti-Corruption Commission and the Election Commission have either been submitted or will be shortly. I’m sticking close to him for this crisis and found his final line very instructive: ‘The most likely avenue for removing Paetongtarn will be through the judges, not MPs.’
Senate Speaker Mongkol Surasajja is expected to lodge a petition to suspend Paetongtarn while the court investigates allegations of ethics breaches next Wednesday. The Constitutional Court will take it, former judge Jaral Phakdeethanakul predicted to the Nation. This is very much before my time, but my understanding is this particular judge had been involved in the cases that ended Thaksin Shinawatra’s premiership. Still, he notes that Paetongtarn has already admitted to wrongdoing over the call.
Across the border in Cambodia, former prime minister Hun Sen has happily predicted Thailand will have a new prime minister in three months. He says he knows who, but will be keeping it to himself.
Border checkpoints remain closed. CamboJA has a fascinating report here from the Poipet International Checkpoint, where more than 6,000 people, mostly Cambodian migrant workers, crossed back into Cambodia within an hour Tuesday evening.
“The Royal Government of Cambodia is ready to welcome our citizens, including providing jobs. There are employment opportunities available due to the current labour shortage in the country,” government spokesperson Pen Bona told the outlet, though it does seem to foreshadow a blowback on Hun Sen’s nationalist gloating.
It’s going both ways. Thailand is blocking tourists from heading into Cambodia, with Paetongtarn saying ‘only students, medical patients and others who need to purchase essential goods’ will be able to leave for Cambodia, the Associated Press reports. She pointed to casinos specifically as a no-go zone, which is leading me closer to the theory that this is all about the Thaksin-backed casino bill, but it appears to be applied across the board.
All of which is to say, next week is going to be a long one.
🇲🇾 Syed Saddiq cleared
It’s been a long road for Malaysia's political wunderkind, Syed Saddiq. In fact, it’s been so long I’m not sure ‘wunderkind’ works anymore.
It’s been a long road for Malaysia’s politico in his 30s, Syed Saddiq. The Court of Appeals yesterday dropped all charges against the Member for Muar dating back to his tenure as the boy genius of the Mahathir Mohamad cabinet. He had been accused of four charges of ‘criminal breach of trust, misappropriation of property and money laundering’ of Bersatu Youth funds, Malaysiakini reported.
He was found guilty back in 2023 by the high court, which found he helped a staffer withdraw RM 1 million from Bersatu Youth — the youth arm of the party founded by Mahathir — and another RM 120,000 snagged out of there for his 2018 campaign funding. He’d been handed an enormous fine and a seven-year jail sentence, though he always maintained his innocence.
It’s a case of “serious misdirection” on behalf of the trial judge, the three-judge panel on the appeals said, as per the South China Morning Post. It ‘found that the high court judge had made several wrong decisions and that there was no element of dishonesty in Syed Saddiq’s bank withdrawal instructions.’
“I don’t regret anything and I am not afraid to go through it all again. In the end, it is worth it,” he told media out the front of the court yesterday, the Star reports. It’s been widely reported that he was ‘tearful’ on exiting and my heart really goes out to him! It really did seem to be dodgy from the jump — a rare vibe in Malaysian politicians facing courts — and justice has prevailed.
“Honestly, I hope that what I have gone through will not be experienced by any of my political enemies. I don’t wish this even on my worst enemies. I bear no grudges for the future. I must thank my legal team. This isn’t just about winning a case in court, but about being on the right side from the beginning,” he told media, as reported by Malaysiakini.