🌍 Another coup for Thailand?

51-50

That’s the vote split that advanced President Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill, with VP Vance casting the tie-breaker to send it back to the House for a final vote as soon as today (Wednesday).

You’re chatting away on the phone after a crappy few weeks at work: yep, Jenny from accounts is at it again, and don’t even get us started on Barry from marketing.

So you vent, throw a little shade, maybe sprinkle in some spice — it’s a private call. You do you, right? Wrong. 

Thailand’s prime minister tried that last month, and she’s now effectively out of a job because someone recorded then leaked her call, triggering a political soap opera with more twists and turns than the Ha Giang Loop.

But Thai politics not your thing? We’ve gone ahead and adapted this to screen for you, borrowing (and mildly bastardising?) Hollywood’s classic script structure for extra pizzazz:

Sure, Thailand and Cambodia have had their differences over the years, but these two neighbours were mostly pretty tight. Cambodia’s Hun Sen once described his Thai counterpart (Shinawatra senior) as his “godbrother” — they even did golf together!

But then in May of this year, something went horribly wrong: the details remain unclear, but basically Thai and Cambodian troops crossed paths in a disputed, un-demarcated border area — shots were fired, and one Cambodian soldier ended up dead.

There were initial glimmers of hope that maybe diplomacy would help de-escalate this thing: the new leaders (children of the godbrothers above) were in contact within hours, and further talks among generals got everyone retreating back to last year’s positions.

But something wasn’t quite right… While saying all the right things about diplomacy, these two (dare we say it… yes, we’re gonna say it) nepo-babies also quietly deployed additional troops and heavy weapons. And then the diplomacy wheels started to wobble:

The young Thai PM (Paetongtarn Shinawatra) tried to bypass her Cambodian counterpart, instead calling the guy’s dad and Cambodia’s ✌️former✌️ leader, Hun Sen.

But you know what? Hun Sen was recording the call! All 17 minutes of it. And he shared a copy not just with his now ✌️in-charge✌️ son but at least 80 other top Cambodian generals and officials, one of whom (if not Hun Sen himself) then leaked it.

Turns out this was a massive deal because, in amongst milking her family ties to stop this thing ending up at the ICJ, the young Thai PM used the call with Hun Sen to dunk on her own general, referring to him as “an opponent”, saying he handled the whole border thing poorly, and suggesting he “just wanted to look cool”.

And that is an extremely spicy thing to do in Thailand, where the military-monarchy establishment is a sensitive issue and still effectively controls most key institutions. Her own dad and aunt both learned this the hard way by getting ousted in military coups!

Of course, Cambodia’s Hun Sen knew all this. And that’s why he (or someone in his circle) leaked the call, torching decades of cross-border family ties to presumably trigger the young Shinawatra’s ouster and clear the way for a favourable ICJ ruling.

And lest there be any doubt, Hun Sen spelled it out on Facebook (he’s 72): "In my opinion, Thailand will have a new prime minister in the next three months, and I know in advance who will be the prime minister, but I won't say it, leaving it to the imagination".

Thailand’s PM tried to play it all off as mere negotiation tactics (and Hun Sen’s predictions as just trolling), but the damage was done. One of the many parties holding her coalition together withdrew, and protestors started calling for her resignation.

Then on Monday, Thailand’s constitutional court — which, let’s be honest, answers to the military-monarchy honchos — suspended the PM from her duties pending an ethics investigation. That’s the same court that used the same ethics tool to remove her predecessor less than a year ago, and it’ll now inevitably be her own fate, too.

But here’s the thing: Thailand has had 22 coup attempts — 13 successful — since the constitutional monarchy got started in 1932 (itself thanks to… 🥁 a coup).

And in a nod to Hollywood’s sequel-obsessed lack of originality, Thailand’s coups are now just re-hashing the same script: the coups that yoinked Paetongtarn’s dad (2006) and aunt (2014) also started with border clashes, followed by accusations they were going soft on national security, then a bit of whipping up of nationalism and unrest until — yoink. 

But even if the coming sequel doesn’t involve a coup, we’re still left with: 

So don’t let anyone yawn in your face about this latest Thai political intrigue. Just add that touch of Hollywood pizzazz.

So what can we learn from all this?

Anyway, stay tuned for the sequel [in deep voice] “this summerrrrrrrrrrrr…”

Intrigue presents:

That’s a big claim, and it comes from physicist, engineer, fellow Intriguer, and the founder of Terraform Industries, now making fuel out of thin air, Dr Casey Handmer.

Don’t miss our chat with Casey! It’s online, Thursday July 10th. Join here!

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Before you limber up for your first cannonball into the pool above, you’ll need to befriend a diplomat at the US consulate in Mexico’s Guadalajara city, where the State Department inaugurated this shiny new 12,000-square-metre mission just last year.

We assume the consular team occasionally takes a break between visas to bronze the rig by the pool? Anyway, the architects described it all as a “physical representation of the long-term commitment to the US-Mexico relationship”. Last year feels long ago.

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