Is the Thai govt on the brink of collapse?

Concerns for the Thai government mount, as thousands of protesters took to the streets in Bangkok on Jun. 28, demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra.

Paetongtarn, daughter of former exiled PM Thaksin Shinawatra, is under pressure after the release of a leaked recording of her appearing to denigrate the nation’s military to Cambodia’s former PM Hun Sen.

Thousands of protesters

The Bangkok Post reported that the protest on Jun. 28 saw “unexpectedly large” numbers take to the streets, with police officially estimating 6,000 people.

There were some echoes of the past, when large street protests by “yellow shirt” clad protesters helped to oust Paetongtarn’s father Thaksin, and later her aunt Yingluck.

The Post reports that the modern protest’s leaders are veterans of the yellow shirt movement, with one even expressing surprise that he would end up protesting Thaksin’s daughter 20 years after protesting Thaksin.

While few protesters wore the traditional yellow-shirted garb of the previous anti-Thaksin demonstrations, with most of the protest leaders wearing white, many Thai flags or flag-themed items were visible.

The June 28 protests were led by the United Power of the Land to Protect Sovereignty group, which demanded Peongtarn's resignation but also opposed a range of other issues, including the Land Bridge megaproject and the government's plans to establish casinos.

Counting coup

However, the opposition to Paetongtarn is not united.

Leaders of the People's Party, the successor party of the 2023 GE’s winner, the Move Forward Party, have accused the protest leaders of attempting to legitimise a military coup.

The People’s Party has previously called for Paetongtarn to step down and hold new elections, ostensibly due to fears that the political crisis might be exploited as a pretext for a coup.

Leaders of the Jun. 28 protest rejected such fears, with Pichit Chaimongkol (a protest leader) saying that accusations that the protest was paving the way for a military takeover were unfair and that the aim was merely to have the PM take responsibility for her actions, as well as to persuade coalition partners to withdraw.

However, another protest leader, Sondhi Limthongkul, undercut this somewhat by telling those gathered at the Victory Monument that he “won’t object if the military does something”, even if he did not want the situation to "deteriorate to the point where another coup happens”, as reported by The Post.

However, he also stated that he did not want the military to take over the government again, as he had previously observed that they had "performed poorly" when last in power.

Wat's going on

The current crisis comes amidst ongoing border tensions between Cambodia and Thailand.

While there have been constant disputes over the Thai-Cambodian border stretching back decades, in May 2025, one such dispute escalated into an exchange of gunfire, resulting in one Cambodian death.

Paetongtarn spoke with the President of Cambodia’s senate, Hun Sen, on Jun. 15 in a bid to de-escalate the situation.

Hun Sen was Cambodia’s longest-serving PM, having given up the role in 2023 in favour of his son Hun Manet.

Hun Sen and the Shinawatra family have been considered close, with The Bangkok Post releasing an image of Hun Sen visiting with Thaksin in 2024.

Thaksin has been under medical house arrest since returning from self-imposed exile in 2023.

It was in this context that Paetongtarn had been speaking to Hun Sen to reduce tensions, even referring to him as “uncle.”

She had also referred to the Thai military commander in charge of the section of the Thai-Cambodian border, saying that his aggressive tone was down to him simply wanting to “look cool”.

Betrayal

However, this attempt at closed-doors, familiarity-based diplomacy appears to have backfired spectacularly, as Hun Sen not only recorded the conversation and shared it with Cambodia’s foreign policy establishment, but he also appears to have released it to the public at large, sparking the current controversy.

Hun Sen has doubled down on his position, accusing Paetongtarn and her family of “betraying” him.

As reported by Thai news outlet The Nation, Hun Sen spoke on a Facebook livestream on Jun. 27, threatening to reveal damaging information about the Shinawatra family.

Hun Sen laid out several grievances, alleging that Paetongtarn and the Thai government had said one thing to him in private while speaking and acting differently in public.

He accused the Thai government of misleading people by taking actions along the Thai-Cambodian border, such as cutting internet access and closing the border, ostensibly to fight online scam centres, but then extending such shutdowns longer than initially signalled.

"You’ve closed borders completely but then publicly deny it," he said.

Alternative leadership

Hun Sen added that the Thai economy was suffering due to their government’s actions, saying that the border closure meant that Cambodians had stopped going to Thailand to seek medical services, to the detriment of Thai hospitals.

Cambodia had also been cut off from buying entry from Thailand’s state-owned oil and gas company but was now purchasing from alternative sources, such as Vietnam, Malaysia, and Singapore.

He also suggested that the Shinawatra family had been ungrateful, reminding them that Paetongtarn’s aunty and former PM Yingluck had escaped Thailand via Cambodia.

Hun Sen also accused Paetongtarn of insulting himself and his son, Cambodian PM Hun Manet, calling the latter “unprofessional”.

He also called for a change of leader in Thailand, saying that he hoped “Thailand gets a new Prime Minister”.

“Someone who can solve problems with Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar.”

Top image via CHANAKARN LAOSARAKHAM / AFP