Thai politics back at the brink (again)

The Constitutional Court's suspension of Paetongtarn Shinawatra from the premiership is déja vu, exposing a pattern of systematic manipulation and concoction of political outcomes. After so many dissolutions of leading political parties and repeated bans of elected representatives over two decades, it is time to call a spade a spade. Thailand is a faux democracy. Its core foundations constitute an autocratic regime that does not really care about the country's future and the collective will of its people.

- Thitinan Pongsudhirak

This is not to say that Ms Paetongtarn was not in the wrong. Her leaked audio clip with Cambodia's former Prime Minister and Senate President Hun Sen was damning and damaging, whereby she compromised her position and Thailand's national interest by catering to the Cambodian strongman in a misguided attempt to defuse border tensions between the two sides. But having a group of senators from a dubious chamber petition a nine-member Constitution Court to go after her is questionable in itself.

The 200-member senate has been hounded by allegations of collusion and vote-rigging, in which the Bhumjaithai Party is accused of gaming and manipulation in the senatorial election in June last year, when the upper chamber was picked from internal nomination processes at local, provincial, and national levels. It must be noted that the Constitutional Court on 1 July dismissed a petition against the Bhumjaithai Party as well as poll staff in the controversial senate election.

Although the court has dismissed a petition that called out the controversial senate, questions linger in the minds of many about the integrity of the upper chamber.

If this judicial assertiveness takes place as a one-off or once in a while, then we could overlook and consider it as due process in a passable legal and constitutional system. But when political parties and prime ministers are suspended and kicked out after every election for 20 years, something is not right with the democracy.