On Friday, a court in Thailand dismissed a royal insult case against the prominent former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, delivering a reprieve for his legally besieged political dynasty. In its ruling, the court stated that the case, brought by Prayut Chan-o-cha’s military junta after comments that Thaksin made in an interview with a South Korean media outlet in 2015, was not backed by sufficient evidence to prove that the 76-year-old had breached the lese-majeste law.
“Evidence from the plaintiff showed the interview by the defendant did not defame, insult or threaten the king, therefore the defendant is not guilty,” the criminal court in Bangkok said, as per Reuters. Thailand’s lese-majeste law, Article 112 of its Penal Code, which criminalizes any insulting comments about the king or the institution of the monarchy, carries punishments of up to 15 years in prison.
Thaksin’s case was the highest-profile among the raft of recent Article 112 cases, many of them brought against leaders of the student-led protests that took place in 2020 and 2021, which human rights groups claim have been used to shut down dissenting views.
The verdict is a rare moment of reprieve for Thaksin, whose relationship with the royalist conservative establishment has steadily soured over the past year. After years of political battle, these two parties formed an unlikely alliance in the wake of the general election of May 2023, in order to block the progressive Move Forward Party (MFP) from forming government. The pact allowed Thaksin to return to Thailand and re-enter politics after more than 15 years in self-exile, and saw his Pheu Thai party form a government with several conservative and military-backed parties.
However, the pact immediately came under strain as Thaksin began flaunting his influence, and the conservative establishment has since renewed its long offensive against the Shinawatras. Last year, the Constitutional Court removed Pheu Thai’s Srettha Thavisin from office over a minor breach of ethics, a week after disbanding the MFP, the largest party in the Thai parliament, and banning 11 of its executives from politics for 10 years.
More recently, royalist conservatives have stoked a border dispute with Cambodia in order to undermine the standing of Thaksin and his daughter, Paetongtarn Shinawatra, who succeeded Srettha as prime minister last year. On July 1, the Constitutional Court suspended Paetongtarn from office pending a Constitutional Court investigation into her conduct during a call with Cambodia’s former leader Hun Sen, which the latter later leaked. The Court is due to rule on Paetongtarn’s case on August 29.
While Thaksin has been granted a reprieve, it is hard to read too much into the not-guilty verdict. First, there is still another ongoing investigation into the circumstances following Thaksin’s return to Thailand in 2023, in particular, the six months he spent in a police hospital in lieu of prison on an old corruption charge. Second, the desire to blunt the influence of the Shinawatras now has to contend with efforts to address the longer-term threat posed by the People’s Party, the successor to the MFP, which is currently the largest party in parliament.
If the conservatives decided to wipe out the Shinawatras, it could precipitate a new election and open the door for the People’s Party. The best-case scenario is to keep the Pheu Thai government in office, weak and under legal pressure, and to ensure that Thaksin is more constrained in the role that he can play in Thai politics. In any event, the seemingly perpetual tug-of-war between the Thaksin political machine and the wardens of the Palace and the traditional political establishment seems set to drag on.