Thousands of rally call on Thailand’s Prime Minister Paeton shinawatra to resign

Thousands of protesters gathered in Bangkok, Thailand’s capital, calling for resignation after her phone leaked with former Cambodian leader Hun Sen.

On the phone, she called the Huns “uncle” and said the Thai military commander was dealing with the recent border dispute, “just trying to look cool and say useless things.”

The call sparked public outrage and led to her key partner in the ruling coalition’s exit. Paetongtarn apologized, but defended “negotiation technology”.

Before leaving to visit northern Thailand, Pettentaan told reporters that it was the people’s “right to protest, as long as it is peaceful.”

The rally on Saturday was a similar rally since the ruling Thai political party on the Philippines came to power in 2023.

Thousands of people braved the monsoon rain to block the road in the Victory Monument War Memorial in Bangkok, waving Thai flags and holding placards to read slogans, such as: “PM is the enemy of the country.”

Protest leader Parnthep Pourpongpan said the prime minister “should abandon because she is the problem”.

Seri Sawangmue, 70, spent the night on a bus from the north of the country to participate in the protests.

He told AFP that he was there “protecting Thailand’s sovereignty and said the prime minister was not suitable”.

He added: “I’ve been through a lot of political crises and I know where this is.”

Paetongtarn said she will no longer answer future calls with the former Cambodian leader, but Paensep told Reuters that many Thais believe she and her influential father were manipulated by Hun senators.

Paetontarn, 38, is the daughter of Thaksin Shinawatra, the ousted former prime minister who returned to Thailand after 15 years in exile. She served for only 10 months and was the country’s second female prime minister, the first of which was her Yingluck Shinawatra.

Protesters called for an end to the leadership of Shinawatra.

The rally was organized by the Land Joint Force, a coalition of most nationalist activists who protested against other governments led by Shinawatra for more than two decades.

In a statement to the crowd, the executive branch and parliament did not “for the benefit of democracy and constitutional monarchy.”

In addition to national flags and placards, people also carry umbrellas to protect themselves from rain. When it stops, the rainbow forms on the Victory Monument.

On Tuesday, the Constitutional Court will decide whether to file a senator’s petition, demanding that Payton Tarn be removed from office for allegedly non-professionalism in calling the Huns.

Hun Sen said he has shared audio clips with 80 politicians, one of whom leaked them. Later, he shared the entire 17-minute recording on his Facebook page.

The phone calls are linked to the recent dispute between Cambodia and Thailand, where Cambodian soldiers died in border conflicts, which have been killed in more than a decade in the border conflict and tensions in May have increased.

However, the dispute between the two countries can be traced back more than a century, when the border was after the French occupation of Cambodia.

Both have imposed border restrictions on each other, and Cambodia has banned Thailand from imports from food to electricity and the internet as well as Thai TV and movie dramas.

Despite the tension between their countries, the Shinawatras’ friendship with the Hun family dates back decades, with Hun Sen and Paeton’s father considering each other’s “Godbrothers”.