Thailand’s protracted political crisis has taken another messy turn as the conservative establishment, seeking to break a parliamentary deadlock after the ousting of yet another prime minister, reaches out to the very reformists it once sidelined.
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The People’s Party, whose bold pro-democracy agenda electrified voters at the last general election but unnerved the country’s elite, now seemingly holds the keys to the country’s next government.
Former Thai prime minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra was removed from office last week by the Constitutional Court, citing an ethics violation tied to a leaked conversation with Cambodia’s former leader.
Her dismissal, the second such ousting of a Pheu Thai prime minister in as many years, has left Thailand with a weakened caretaker government scrambling for a path forward.
Now, in a bid to secure enough votes to install its candidate Anutin Charnvirakul as prime minister, the conservative bloc – led by the Bhumjaithai Party – has begun courting the People’s Party.
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