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BANGKOK: Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra faced mounting calls Thursday to resign after a leaked phone call she had with former Cambodian leader Hun Sen provoked widespread anger and prompted a key coalition partner to quit.

The coalition government led by Paetongtarn’s Pheu Thai party appears on the brink of collapse, throwing the kingdom into a fresh round of political instability as it seeks to boost its spluttering economy and avoid US President Donald Trump’s swinging trade tariffs.

The conservative Bhumjaithai party, Pheu Thai’s biggest partner, pulled out on Wednesday saying Paetongtarn’s conduct in the leaked call had wounded the country and the army’s dignity.

Thailand’s foreign ministry said Cambodia’s disclosure of a recording of a private conversation between Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra and former Prime Minister Hun Sen were unacceptable.

“It is a breach of diplomatic etiquette, a serious violation of trust, and undermines conduct between two neighboring countries,” spokesperson Nikorndej Balankura said on Thursday.

In the call, Paetongtarn is heard discussing an ongoing border dispute with Hun Sen – who stepped down as Cambodian prime minister in 2023 after four decades but still wields considerable influence.

She addresses the veteran leader as “uncle” and refers to the Thai army commander in the country’s northeast as her opponent, a remark that sparked fierce criticism on social media.

Losing Bhumjaithai’s 69 MPs leaves Paetongtarn with barely enough votes to scrape a majority in parliament, and a snap election looks a clear possibility – barely two years after the last one in May 2023.

Two coalition parties, the United Thai Nation and Democrat Party, will hold meetings to discuss the situation later Thursday.

Losing either would likely mean the end of Paetongtarn’s government, and either an election or a bid by other parties to stitch together a new coalition.

Thailand’s military said in a statement that army chief General Pana Claewplodtook “affirms commitment to democratic principles and national sovereignty protection.”

“The Chief of Army emphasized that the paramount imperative is for ‘Thai people to stand united’ in collectively defending national sovereignty,” it added.

Thailand’s armed forces have long played a powerful role in the kingdom’s politics, and politicians are usually careful not to antagonize them.

The kingdom has had a dozen coups since the end of absolute monarchy in 1932, and the current crisis has inevitably triggered rumors that another may be in the offing.

If Paetongtarn is ousted in a coup she would be the third member of her family, after her aunt Yingluck and father Thaksin Shinawatra, to be kicked out of office by the military.

The main opposition People’s Party, which won most seats in 2023 but was blocked by conservative senators from forming a government, called on Paetongtarn to organize an election.

“What happened yesterday was a leadership crisis that destroyed people’s trust,” People’s Party leader Natthaphong Ruengpanyawut said in a statement.

The Palang Pracharath party, which led the government up to 2023 and is headed by General Prawit Wongsuwan – who supported a 2014 coup against Paetongtarn’s aunt Yingluck – said the leaked recording showed she was weak and inexperienced, incapable of managing the country’s security.

Hundreds of anti-government protesters, some of them veterans of the royalist, anti-Thaksin “Yellow Shirt” movement of the late 2000s, demonstrated outside Government House Thursday demanding Paetongtarn quit.

Paetongtarn, 38, came to power in August 2024 at the head of an uneasy coalition between Pheu Thai and a group of conservative, pro-military parties whose members have spent much of the last 20 years battling against her father.

Growing tensions within the coalition erupted into open warfare in the past week as Pheu Thai tried to take the interior minister job away from Bhumjaithai leader Anutin Charnvirakul.

The loss of Bhumjaithai leaves Pheu Thai’s coalition with just a handful more votes than the 248 needed for a majority.

The battle between the conservative pro-royal establishment and Thaksin’s political movement has dominated Thai politics for more than 20 years.

Former Manchester City owner Thaksin, 75, still enjoys huge support from the rural base whose lives he transformed with populist policies in the early 2000s.

But he is despised by Thailand’s powerful elites, who saw his rule as corrupt, authoritarian and socially destabilizing.

The current Pheu Thai-led government has already lost one prime minister, former businessman Srettha Thavisin, who was kicked out by a court order last year that brought Paetongtarn to office.

– with Reuters

YANGON: Myanmar’s deposed democratic leader Aung San Suu Kyi marked her 80th birthday in junta detention on Thursday, serving a raft of sentences set to last the rest of her life.

Suu Kyi was the figurehead of Myanmar’s decade-long democratic thaw, becoming de facto leader as it opened up from military rule.

But as the generals snatched back power in a 2021 coup, she was locked up on charges ranging from corruption to breaching COVID-19 pandemic restrictions and is serving a 27-year sentence.

“It will be hard to be celebrating at the moment,” said her 47-year-old son Kim Aris from the UK.

“We’ve learned to endure when it’s been going on so long.”

He is running 80 kilometers (50 miles) over the eight days leading up to her birthday, and has collected over 80,000 well-wishing video messages for his mother.

But Suu Kyi will not see them, sequestered in Myanmar’s sprawling capital Naypyidaw from where the military directs a civil war against guerilla fighters.

Aris said he has heard from his mother only once via letter two years ago since she was imprisoned.

“We have no idea what condition she’s in,” he said, adding that he fears she is suffering from untreated medical problems with her heart, bones and gums.

No formal celebrations are planned in junta-held parts of Myanmar, but a gaggle of followers in military-controlled Mandalay city staged a spontaneous protest ahead of her birthday, local media said.

A few masked protesters showered a street with pamphlets reading “freedom from fear” and “happy birthday” as one member help up a portrait of Suu Kyi in shaky camera footage shared on social media.

“Do you still remember this great person?” asked one of the protesters in the video, which AFP has not been able to independently verify.

While Suu Kyi remains hugely popular in the majority Buddhist country, her status as a democracy icon abroad collapsed before the military takeover after she defended the generals in their crackdown against the Rohingya Muslim minority.

Hundreds of thousands were sent fleeing to neighboring Bangladesh under her rule, though some argued she was powerless against the lingering influence of Myanmar’s military.

Nonetheless institutions and figures that once showered Suu Kyi with awards rapidly distanced themselves, and her second round of imprisonment has received far less international attention.

Suu Kyi, the daughter of Myanmar independence hero Aung San, became a champion of democracy almost by accident.

After spending much of her youth abroad, she returned in 1988 to nurse her sick mother but began leading anti-military protests crushed by a crackdown.

She was locked up for 15 years, most of it in her family’s Yangon lakeside mansion where she still drew crowds for speeches over the boundary wall.

The military offered freedom if she went into exile but her poised refusal thrust her into the spotlight and won her the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize.

Suu Kyi was released in 2010 and led her National League for Democracy party to electoral victory in 2015, never formally in charge as army-drafted rules kept her from the presidency.

If the octogenarian were released from her current incarceration, Aris predicts she would likely step back from a “frontline position” in Myanmar politics.

The military has promised new elections at the end of this year, but they are set to be boycotted by many groups comprised of former followers of Suu Kyi’s non-violent vision who have now taken up arms.