Thailand-Cambodia border conflict 'instrumentalised, weaponised' for internal political purposes

Name: Thailand-Cambodia border conflict 'instrumentalised, weaponised' for internal political purposes
Uploaded: 2025-07-02T19:36:24+00:00
Duration: 13 min 38 s
Channel: FRANCE 24 English
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00:00Thailand's acting prime minister is set to fall after just one full day on the job.

00:04The incoming interior minister, Phum Thanh Wechaya Chai, set to take over in the wake

00:10of the suspension by the constitutional court of Petang Tharn Shinawath, the ouster of the

00:1533-year-old daughter of billionaire opposition leader Thaksin Shinawath, has been removed,

00:24at least temporarily for now, over a leaked phone call with former Cambodian leader Hun Sen,

00:32where she is deemed to be too fawning, calling him uncle at one point and disparaging her own generals.

00:43The Thais today wondering whether this is just the military-backed elite closing ranks

00:49or if the country's headed for a new period of political instability.

00:54She thought it was her way to solve the border dispute, but for me, I thought her message

01:01was quite damaging, too deferential. She caused conflict to the military.

01:07It's pretty normal, like all the cases before it. I don't feel much about it because it's

01:13become such a norm now. There have been so many cycles of this.

01:17I've lost hope in Thai politics from watching the news. I'm bored of it. There is no one that

01:26really cares about the country.

01:28And for more, we're joined by Eugénie Mirieu, associate professor of law at Sorbonne University. You're the author of

01:39Constitutional Bricolage, DIY, if you will, Thailand's sacred monarchy versus the rule of law. Thank you for being with us here.

01:48Thank you for the invitation.

01:49You heard that last man on the street there saying that he's disgruntled with politics. So whatever happens, we're not going back to the big protest movements of 2020 and 2021?

02:02Yeah. So one of the person you interviewed on the street said, well, it's the same old cycle. And it's indeed is reminiscent of a pre-coup dynamics.

02:12We've seen that so many times in Thai politics. Since 1932, there have been 13 military coups in Thailand. There's always a new constitution and the military then organizes or supervises elections.

02:25And then there is another military coup. So this in particular, this sequence is really closely or resembles what happened in 2006 and 2014,

02:37the last two military coups that were directed against the Shinawats against Taksin in 2006 and against Yinglak, his sister in 2014. So it seems like we are now engaged in yet another of this cycle, which leads to a military coup.

02:56So explain this to us. Taksin is in exile. They make a deal where you come back and we'll convict you, grant you an amnesty, and you can have the levers of power. And now all bets are off. Why?

03:13Well, so first of all, Taksin is the most popular prime minister ever elected in Thailand. Only came the move forward party in the last election.

03:25And they were prevented from stash. Yes. And they were prevented from forming a government.

03:29So Taksin has been dominating Thai politics for the last decades, since 2001, when he was first elected.

03:37And since then, he's polarized Thailand between the yellow shirts and the red shirts.

03:42So the red shirts were supporters of Taksin and the yellow shirts were the ultra-royalists against Taksin.

03:48Now, what happened in 2023, so he had been in exile for more than a decade after he was overthrown in a military coup and then sentenced to jail for corruption,

03:59is that he was able to come back. And when he came back, there was no protest.

04:04So this means that there has been a pact, an alliance between Taksin and the old establishment, the military and the monarchy.

04:11This pact entailed the, let's say, the promise by the Pratai party, by Taksin's party, not to touch on the monarchy,

04:23not to touch on the military budget, not to touch on the Les Majestés law.

04:28The Les Majestés law, which means stiff sentences for anybody who criticizes the king.

04:33Up to 15 years in jail for criticizing the king.

04:36So now Taksin is being prosecuted for Les Majestés. So the pact has ended.

04:41When you do a deal with the military and the monarchy, it's like in geopolitics, when you do a deal with the United States of America,

04:48it's the worst idea ever to make an alliance with the military and the monarchy.

04:54This happened before to the Democrat Party, which made a deal with the military and the monarchy,

04:59so accepted to form the government and backed by the military, but then they were not supported by the military, so they lost everything.

05:09So this is exactly what is happening to Taksin right now.

05:12He's made a bad deal with the military and the monarchy, and now he's being dropped.

05:17Was there a window of opportunity for Thailand after the king died, when there was the protest movement,

05:25when Thailand, which is a country with institutions, it's not a full-on dictatorship like neighboring Cambodia has become,

05:33but was there a moment when there could have been more reform?

05:37Well, we could describe Thailand as a tutelary democracy, meaning that electoral politics can play a role up to a certain point.

05:46There are tutelary powers, the military and the monarchy, they have veto powers over whoever steps over the line.

05:53And this is apparently what just happened with the Peut Thai Party and with Betong Tan.

05:58So what happens next? Because you were talking about a familiar scenario, and at the end it ends with a coup.

06:05But do they need to have a coup this time, since they have the levers of power?

06:09And since they have the constitutional court.

06:11So the difference with the last two coups and what is happening now is that there is the role of the constitutional court,

06:19which paves the way for the military coup.

06:21But it doesn't have to end in a military coup.

06:23There can be only a judicial coup, which is what happened to the Move Forward Party.

06:28So the Move Forward Party actually sidelined or marginalized the Peut Thai Party,

06:32which was the pro-democratic party.

06:35Since this Peut Thai Party allied with the military and the monarchy,

06:40then they have become part of the establishment.

06:42But as I said, it's just like being allied with the United States.

06:46It just doesn't work, even if you submit entirely to that military monarchy pact.

06:51So now this is the Move Forward Party, which has been dissolved in 2020, won the election in 2023,

06:59was not able to form a government due to the constitutional court's ruling,

07:03and now has been dissolved again and has been reformed.

07:06So this party is now the new, let's say, the new democratic aspiration of the Thai people.

07:13And this is the party that is going to be next in line for being blocked by the constitutional court.

07:20So in the case of what's happening next is that we're going to have another election.

07:26If we do not have a military coup, we will have another election.

07:29And this other election will likely be won no longer by the Peut Thai Party

07:34because it will have been dissolved or nobody will vote for that party anymore

07:39since they have betrayed their vote and since they have been dropped by the establishment as well.

07:46So the new Move Forward or People's Party will win the election.

07:50And that's when we might have another military coup, in fact.

07:53All right.

07:53So Eugénie Meriot, you talk, you use the word aspiration.

07:57They say revolutions don't happen when things are at their worst.

08:01But actually, when people are aspiring, when people are beginning to feel things,

08:06they want things to get better and they feel the injustice then.

08:09Thailand is a country that economically has gone from strength to strength the last decade.

08:15It's doing very well.

08:16In fact, it's going to have some difficult trade negotiations with the United States coming up very shortly.

08:23Because the economics have changed, does that change the political dynamic?

08:27Okay.

08:28So first of all, I fully agree with you.

08:30And political science tells us the lesson of revolutions,

08:34that they come indeed when there is a frustration.

08:37So there is a high hope.

08:39There is the possibility of a better future.

08:41And then this is ripped by the military.

08:42This is what happened in 2006, when taxing has changed the economic landscape of Thailand,

08:49has been able to repay the IMF loan before actually the end of the time frame,

08:56and has made Thailand into a strong, powerful country, even on the geopolitical scene.

09:01And then at that moment, he was removed in a military coup.

09:04And that's when we had the revolutionary dynamics that started in Thailand.

09:08So we're still on that trajectory right now.

09:12And we've seen that in 2020 as well.

09:15There was this huge aspiration in the Move Forward Party,

09:19which was dissolved by the Constitutional Court.

09:21And that's when we had this mass protest in Thailand that called for the end of the monarchy altogether,

09:26and really to change the entire old apparatus of Thailand into something more liberal,

09:33into something more westernized, and so on and so forth.

09:36So yes, we have that strong aspiration to change Thailand, and there is no going back.

09:43Yeah, because you were in Thailand at the beginning of the year.

09:45Yes.

09:46What was the mood like then?

09:48What were people like?

09:49Were they in this mood of things have to change?

09:51Or were they like, again, that last man we heard in those men on the street interviews saying,

09:58well, I just give up when it comes to politics?

10:00Well, disappointed because there has been an election that has been won in a landslide by the Move Forward Party,

10:06or sorry, the future, well, the People's Party now, under the new name.

10:11And they were not able to get their favorite prime minister.

10:16And then they've seen the Peratai Party, so Taksin's party,

10:19which was supposed to not ally itself with the military and the monarchy

10:23and be part of a coalition with the Move Forward Party, which betrayed its vote.

10:29So there has been a massive disappointment.

10:32And since we had that momentum in 2020, 2021, with this revolutionary dynamics that flared up again,

10:40and again, we had massive repression.

10:43So most of the protesters of 2020 and 2021 were prosecuted for les majestés or cybercrime laws.

10:51And this created a sort of, let's say, a general feeling of disappointment.

10:58But things will flare up again in the future.

11:01People are waiting for the next election.

11:03The idea was that, OK, there will be another election,

11:06and this time it will be impossible to get rid of the vote of the Thai people

11:12if there is an absolute majority for Move Forward or its successor party.

11:18So really, it was...

11:20And can they get the votes from just outside of urban areas?

11:23Can they get the votes from the rural parts of the country?

11:27Because there is this city versus country divide.

11:29Yeah, so this is the thing that has changed since 2006.

11:33Now the vote has clearly changed, and the rural and the urban areas have been won in the last election by the Move Forward Party.

11:41And another important thing is that Bangkok has been completely won by the Move Forward Party,

11:47meaning that the Bangkokians are not pro-military coup anymore like they used to be in the past.

11:54In the past, you had a military coup against the provinces, against the rural poor areas.

11:59The yellow shirt versus the red shirt were a bit like that before.

12:03Exactly.

12:03And so the military would roll their tanks in the streets of Bangkok,

12:06and people would welcome them with flowers and support the coup.

12:10But this is no longer going to be happening because the people of Bangkok have changed their allegiance to more democratic political parties.

12:19One final question, Eugénie Meriot.

12:21This all began with a leaked phone call with Cambodia's former strongman, Hoon Sen.

12:29Could tensions flare even more between Cambodia and Thailand at this point,

12:35or is it all just a bit of grandstanding?

12:37Well, this is really a sad story.

12:39When we talk about mass protests in Thailand, the ones that start a pre-coup dynamics,

12:45it happened in 2006 and now in 2013 for the 2014 coup, and now it's happening again.

12:52And these protesters are the ultra-royalists, and they use the Cambodian issue,

12:56just like they did in 2006-2007, in order to create that atmosphere.

13:01And this is, in fact, really a pretext.

13:06And this is so sad to see that there is an entire border conflict that is being instrumentalized,

13:12weaponized for internal domestic politics issues.

13:16And this happened in 2006-2007, and this is happening now again.

13:23Eugénie Meriot, many thanks for being with us here on France 24.

13:27Stay with us.

13:27There's much more to come.

13:28More news plus today's business and sports.

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Thailand-Cambodia border conflict 'instrumentalised, weaponised' for internal political purposes

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