Thai prime minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra sacked for ethics violation after leaked phone call

Thailand’s prime minister has been sacked after a leaked phone call with a senior Cambodian politician caused outrage.

Paetongtarn Shinawatra, who was Thailand’s youngest PM, has been dismissed from office by Thailand’s Constitutional Court after only a year in power.

The court found Ms Shinawatra, 39, violated ethics in a leaked June telephone call, during which she appeared to kowtow to Cambodia’s former leader Hun Sen as the bordering countries were on the verge of an armed conflict.

She also criticised a Thai army commander – a taboo move in a country where the military is extremely influential.

Fighting erupted weeks later and lasted five days.

Ms Shinawatra, who was a newbie to politics when she took office in August last year, apologised over the call and said she was trying to avert a war. She was suspended from office in July.

She is now the sixth Thai PM from, or backed by, the billionaire Shinawatra family to be removed by the military or the judiciary amid a two-decade battle for power between the country’s warring elites.

The focus in Thailand will now shift to who will replace Ms Shinawatra.

Her influential, billionaire father Thaksin Shinawatra – who also once served as Thailand’s PM – is expected to be at the heart of a flurry of bargaining to keep the ruling Pheu Thai party in power.

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