EP95: Thailand’s Political Instability Persists with former MP Kunthida Rungruengkiat
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Welcome to Straight Talk Southeast Asia. This is a podcast that covers current developments in the region, particular countries, domestic politics, as well as regional issues. We look in depth at what is happening, why it might be happening. We speak to analysts, academics from the region, based in the region, and to better understand what's happening and what might be the projections of what's happening ahead. We're now in our second season.

I'm Bridget Welsh. I'm a political analyst and academic who's worked on Southeast Asia for many decades. I was raised here. I'm living here. And very importantly, I care about what's happening in the region. Thanks for joining me. Welcome to Straight Talk Southeast Asia. You're here with Bridget Welsh and my co-host, Zachary Abouza. And this is episode 27 of season three. As always, listeners, thank you very much for tuning into the conversations we're having about the region.

The week began with Prabowo Subianto, president of Indonesia, going to Russia. Instead of going to the G7, he decided to go to the Russia Davos. He created a lot of controversy in doing so because he was, in a sense, sending a signal to the West that Russia was more important.

It indicates transformative dimension of Indonesia's foreign policy as he's reaching out and building on his personal ties. We've seen Indonesia continuing to expand on BRICS, which is a partnership that they have entered into. Particularly important player in that is Russia. And also we can see that he tried to consolidate business ties and investment for Indonesia.

There's been a lot of discussion about this among Indonesian academics, about whether or not this is a substantive foreign policy or more symbolic, whether or not it's moving away from neutrality or it's repositioning in the new global dynamics, whether or not it signals a move from the West or just a timing that was a different dynamic that should not be over-interpreted. But it is an interesting thing to watch, and I'm sure we'll be continuing the conversations about Indonesia's foreign policy.

Also this past week, we had a really important report come out by Amnesty International on the scam centers in Cambodia. It talks about trafficking and slavery. And this comes after one of my fellow authors in the USIP transnational crime report, Jacob Sims, had written a fantastic report about what's going on in Cambodia and how scam centers and the scam industry have become very deeply embedded.

in the nature of Cambodian politics and its political economy. Both of these reports highlight the very troubling dynamic in Southeast Asia. At least part of the region is having such a level of criminality that it's very difficult to move back from. And it has tremendous impact for those who are caught up in this. It's going to be a challenge for the region when Southeast Asia gets the label of being the scam region and then how to move away from that.

Closer to home here in Malaysia, we saw a very important development, and that is the political case involving a young parliamentarian, Syed Sedeq. He was finally acquitted for his charges of misappropriating and misusing money.

The decision was unanimous. The government still decided to appeal the decision, but it was interesting to see the decision focus on questioning the very harsh penalties in the first decision that found him guilty, including caning, as well as the grounds for the decision. The current assessment looked at the initial judgment and judge as seeing to failing to address the issues of the defense and to look at the case holistically.

Why is it important for understanding Malaysian politics is that Syed Sedeq is one of many, but an important younger leader as Malaysian politics continues to grapple with being held by the power of old men. The attention to younger leaders is, in a sense, very interesting. And now this one, at least for the time being, has an opportunity to continue to prove his mettle.

We also see in the region some very important developments in Thailand. And that is where the focus has been of today's conversation. We're looking at Thai politics and the political instability over the course of the week. The contestation and the tensions between Cambodia and Thailand continue, and they're continuing up through this past week.

But in Thailand, we've now seen protests, which we saw previously in the past, street protests, that of tapping into nationalist sentiment. We could see that the Thai prime minister, her popularity rating is an unprecedented low, only 9%. This contrasts, for example, very differently from that of Anwar Ibrahim here in Malaysia. He had one of the higher popularity areas of almost 50%.

55%, although many people would say that this is product more of weaknesses in the opposition, but he has maintained a positive majority support where this has not been the case in Thailand. And as a consequence, we can see that the coalition government there is facing quite significant troubles.

Now, to talk about that, we're joined by Kuntida Kungrindiyat. She is a Thai academic, activist, and a former member of parliament. She served as the deputy leader of the Future Forward Party, one of the parties that were banned. She is very dynamic, and I think you will really enjoy the conversation that she has with Zach talking about what's going on in contemporary Thai politics.

Thanks, as always, for joining the conversation here on Straight Talk Southeast Asia. Today, we saw mass demonstrations in the street of Bangkok. We haven't seen those in several years. How did we get to this current point in the political crisis?

I have to go a little back when the general election happened. So after the general election, Thailand's political crisis started with a government that was built on extremely fragile foundations. The current ruling coalition, as many already know, represents a grand compromise between the Puyat Thai Party and the elite establishment. So essentially, this is a coalition of convenience. It is designed solely...

to enable the Puyatai to form the government and of course to prevent the Muphawar Party from governing. It was quite clear back then. For Puyatai, it was also to make sure that Khantatsin could come back. To make it even more simple, I would say this is in the lines of mutual interest rather than a shared vision of a change for the country.

This arrangement has created a fundamental legitimacy crisis. The instability has deep roots in Thailand, troubled post-23 election. Another point that I'd like to make is that while this is an uneasy alliance,

It started with Khun Pha Tong Khan, the Prime Minister's predecessor, the former Prime Minister Khun Seta Thol-I-Sin. He was in power and he was removed by the Constitutional Court in August 24 over the ethnic complaint. Less than a year later, we're seeing Khun Pha Tong Khan also facing a similar fate.

Then on top of all of that, we had this surprise leak of a phone call that emerged after a border skirmish between Thai and Cambodian soldiers. Can you explain how that fits into the current crisis?

Yes, the phone call, the catalyst, the trigger, however someone would call it, this was a leaked phone call on June 1825 between Prime Minister Phé Thong Thanh and former Cambodian leader Hun Sen regarding the border dispute. In this recording, she appeared personal, calling Hun Sen uncle and also differential an overbearing

openly criticized the Thai Army Commanders' opposition. It was clear that in the phone call, it is more a direct personal communication between the two rather than a formal diplomatic channel. Another fact was that this Cambodian interpreter present, he was facilitating discussion and Klyen Huat is a very important figure

This leak doesn't have just the implication on the border issue, but it also tied with the transnational repression. The first one, Klyen Huat, this figure has previously been seen with Thai activist Wan Chalom, who disappeared during his exile in 2020.

Second, there's another unverified audio clip obtained by Al Jazeera that allegedly captured nobody know if it was Hing San and Kling Phuat discussing the crackdowns on opposition figures. Adding to that concern,

Lin Kim-ya, a French national at that time and former Cambodian opposition figure, was charged dead in Thailand in January 25. This is another analysis, this is another podcast, but I guess you could see the context of the whole situation that is ongoing as challenges on top of what Khun Pae Tong Thain is facing.

Yeah, that's a very interesting point at the end because Thailand has been a very permissive environment for many authoritarian governments, including Laos, Vietnam, and Cambodia to hunt down their activists there. And for years, the Thaksin family was so close to Hun Sen that all of this comes as a real surprise.

But the phone call had a real political fallout. The recent NIDA poll found that Futai and the prime minister are at record lows, around 9% support for them. Perhaps you could talk a little bit about the political fallout.

After the phone call, the crisis also happened because it was this pressure from both external, and what's going on in the phone call, and also the internal pressure. It sparked the widespread distrust.

on top of the troubled legitimacy of the government and also undermine Khun Phan Thong Khan's legitimacy as prime minister. But it also sparked the far-right sentiment that had been very quiet during the past years. Some critics and people, the far-right supporters, calling her selling the nation, the direct translation in Thai. This is an extremely powerful narrative.

commonly used by the nationalist group. And the protest on Victory Monument on June 28 was clear that the sentiment remains political potent because of that particular personal discussion between Khun Peh Tong Thanh and Hung Sang.

Internally, there's another crisis ongoing, which is the coalition tensions. Koon Peh Tongtan's administration's decision to reshuffle the cabinet and the issue of transferring the Ministry of Interior back to Phuong Chai, during this height of all controversy, caused significant friction between Phuong Chai and Phuong Jai Chai. As many already know, that it destabilized the whole

the whole government coalition and put the coalition in danger.

Hope you're enjoying listening to this episode. If you want to find out more about previous episodes, you can reach this on the website, straighttalksoutheastasia.com. The link should also be available in the show notes. If you want to contribute to the production costs of the podcast, you can hit the link, buy me a coffee. Every little penny counts. All that money will not go to me, but go to the producers who are helping me to put the show together. Thanks for listening.

With the defection of Bung Jae-tae's 69 MPs, she is down to a razor thin majority in parliament. You can easily imagine some of the other coalition partners either thinking about defecting or being pressured to defect and withdraw their support.

Perhaps you could talk a little about how in all of this, the prime minister has been trying to push through a cabinet reshuffle and what it means. The cabinet reshuffle...

had been going on for a while. And it was not exactly the genuine solution of all of this because it's clear that the trust in the government has already basically hit the rock button as the polls suggest that Khun Sai Tong Kan is number five, Khun Nathapong from People's Party is number one, and Khun Prayuth is number three in the popularity polls.

It's clear that the administration had to try even harder among all of this to make sure that the situation is better. But the redistribution of the eight ministerial polls vacated because Phumjai Thai left. The coalition came after the 3.5 billion USD in infrastructure spending to demonstrate the economic leadership, which

did not really help and with the void of the reshuffle then this remains void because nobody knows what would happen. There are rumors that it's going to spin in this way and that way and it could be redesigned and nobody actually knows how it would be spent which also shown as another failure in her administration.

The reshuffle basically bought time for her administration at this moment, but it is absolutely not a solution to the crisis that is ongoing. It bought some time. It did not buy very much time. She has angered the military. She has appeared to sell out national interest to the Cambodians.

There are mass demonstrations in the street and her polling is absolutely cratering right now. I guess we have to ask that question. Can Pai Tong Tan survive this crisis?

Her prospects look increasingly bleak, as we already learned that she's facing multiple simultaneous challenges at the same time. One that is extremely crucial would be the Constitutional Court. The case is filed by the 36 senators seeking her qualification over the alleged ethical violations.

There could be five analysis of this. The court will sit on the 1st of July. Scenario one would be constitutional court could delay the process by asking for more documents and nobody know whether the constitutional court will accept the case or not. Or two, constitutional court could accept the case, but allow Peh Tongkhan to perform her duties.

Or three, constitutional court would accept the case and allows Pai Chong-chang to perform some of her duties based on the past ruling of the court of other politicians. Or four, constitutional court could accept the case and suspend her and this would cause another chaos or could just dismiss the case in the fifth scenario.

But while the straight protesters were there, it was clear that there was pressure from some people. And her survival depends entirely on holding the remaining coalition together, which, as you already know, it's been very challenging for her.

All of this is so complex. And yet here you have this grand bargain that was originally designed, a deal between the military and ultra-royalists on one side and tax and Shinawatra on the other side. And it's all coming apart and really seems like those conservative elements

elements in society were never going to accept that grand bargain. And they've been just chipping away at it ever since. We have to understand now, what can the opposition do? What can other parties do as we move forward?

The parliament is resuming on the 3rd of July. The People's Party has already been clear that the parliament dissolution and fresh elections gives the voice back to the people to vote again would be the solution. Already, the party proposed this solution to the administration earlier on. This would provide a democratically legitimate solution, and it would prevent the

the potential military intervention

It was also obvious from the protesters on the 28th that there were some proposals of calling the military out to solve the problem, which is not again. Thailand has seen way more coups already in the past political history. And at the moment is also proposing the

the no-vote vote. However, the People's Party, as the leader of a position, already declared that the no-vote candidate would be used not for convenience because it can only be used once a year. So it has to be put to a highest consideration.

Right now, the opposition is basically saying not yet to the noble confidence to the censure debate and calling for the fresh election to happen. So the prime minister resolves the parliament and then the election would follow. However, if the prime minister, Cung Phatong Kangra, signs herself, there are actually four other

Prime Minister candidate Khun Chai Kasem Pham Phuet Chai Khun Prayut, he still can be the Prime Minister candidate but he has to resign from the Privy Council duty Khun Anutin and Khun Hirapan. I don't see any of these candidates as a solution at the moment.

It seems clear to me that the military-backed parties are looking to coalesce perhaps around Anutin and Bumjaitai as a conservative check on the People's Party. I don't think they have any interest in a general election anytime soon.

While all of this is going on, could you briefly go over some of the critical economic and social issues that are being overlooked right now? Number one is corruption. The corruption perception index worsens. It also results of a decade long of military government. But the People's Party has been disclosing way many corruption cases.

Interestingly, they were held no or limited or restricted accountable. And this has been holding Thailand back from any major reform that should have already taken place. As also a promise of Kuwaiti party during the election campaign. That's number one, and that's crucial. Number two, Thailand faces several structural challenges.

Most alarming is the household debt, which has reached 104% of GDP. This is among the highest ranked in the world. The economic growth projection in 2025 has been downgraded to just 2.7% below the regional peers.

Perhaps we still don't know what will happen with the U.S. trade tariffs between Thailand and the U.S. under Trump administration. The negotiations are ongoing according to the administration, but we have no idea what will happen.

In education, Thailand's result in 22 PISA assessment, Thailand ranked fifth within the Southeast Asia. Basically, the result is even lower than Vietnam. It's clear that only 1% of Thai students are top performers, for example, in mathematics. If we compared to the 9% average of the OECD, it is clear that education performance

is also under a huge danger because it shows large inequality. Thailand has been dealing with political crises for going on two decades now. And in that time, the Vietnamese and other neighboring competitors

have just stormed ahead. And so there are real societal and economic costs caused by this political contestation between the elites and the Thai people. As we are looking in the immediate future, what scenario should we watch for?

First, the gradual coalition collapse because of that razor thin majority of the government and the future election that could happen.

Second, would actually come even sooner, the constitutional or judicial removal of Pei Tongtan, which actually is not the only case that is ongoing. She has multiple cases against her. I clearly am against the lawfare, against politicians, because what I face, the 10 years long disqualification, but

But this is ongoing in Thailand at the moment again. The third one, the military intervention, if the street protests escalate even more, these three would be something that you have to observe very closely for Thailand during these past couple of weeks. And going on further, at the end of July, then you'll have to see how the national budget would change.

and what would happen after that if Petongtan could survive these first couple of weeks. Is there any reason to be hopeful?

Exactly. We have been discussing rather hopeless challenges of Thailand and the prospect of going back to that vicious cycle again. But among Southeast Asian countries, I think Thailand younger generation, Thailand youth and Thai people in general, they still are very active in politics and they are willing to participate in democratic elections.

From the past protests on 28 June, many Thai people are still rejecting the military intervention. I think the generational shift may prove decisive to prevent another coup, both as opinions, as pressure to the military not to stage another coup, and also to become active again at the ballot.

There's always the threat of a coup in Thailand, I think, created a system whereby they don't need to directly intervene in politics. They certainly have used the Anti-Corruption Commission, that control over the constitutional court. Lawfare has been very effective right now. Those are instruments they wield very effectively.

What a pleasure it is to talk to you. Thank you for sharing your insights with our listeners. Thank you, Ka. Thank you for having me. Thank you for listening to the episode. Subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast listening app. If you'd like to keep up to date on current Southeast Asian political affairs, just keep following. This is Bridget Welsh, and I look forward to connecting to you in the next episode. Straight Talk Southeast Asia is produced by Norman Chella, a.k.a. Norm, and you can find him at thatsthenorm.com.

Thanks so much for listening.