{"id":20014,"date":"2025-03-26T13:31:12","date_gmt":"2025-03-26T07:46:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/?p=20014"},"modified":"2025-03-26T13:31:12","modified_gmt":"2025-03-26T07:46:12","slug":"thai-pm-survives-no-confidence-vote","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/thai-pm-survives-no-confidence-vote\/","title":{"rendered":"Thai PM survives no-confidence vote"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>

Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra survived a no-confidence vote in parliament on Wednesday, defeating a challenge from opposition parties who accused her of being a puppet of her father, billionaire ex-premier Thaksin Shinawatra.<\/p>\n

After a two-day censure debate in which the opposition attacked 38-year-old Paetongtarn’s management of the country and her inexperience, MPs voted down the no-confidence motion by 319 votes to 162, with seven abstentions.<\/p>\n

Paetongtarn thanked her supporters after winning the vote.<\/p>\n

“All votes, both for and against, will be a force driving me and the cabinet to carry on working hard for the people,” she wrote on Facebook.<\/p>\n

Thaksin, the most influential but controversial politician of modern Thai history, returned to the kingdom in 2023 after 15 years of self-exile.<\/p>\n

He served a few months of an eight-year jail sentence for historic graft and abuse of power charges in a police hospital before being pardoned by the king, fuelling rumours of a backroom deal to treat him leniently.<\/p>\n

The 75-year-old remains popular among millions of poorer Thais who prospered under his 2001-2006 rule, but he is despised by the kingdom’s conservative elite who regard him as corrupt and manipulative.<\/p>\n

Paetongtarn became prime minister last year at the head of a coalition government led by the Pheu Thai party — the latest incarnation of the political movement founded by Thaksin — after the incumbent Srettha Thavisin was thrown out by a court order.<\/p>\n

During the censure debate Rangsiman Rome, an outspoken lawmaker with the main opposition People’s Party, accused Paetongtarn of engineering preferential treatment for her father.<\/p>\n

“You made a deal, a demon deal, to get your father better conditions than other prisoners,” he said in parliament.<\/p>\n

“The condition was your father will not be in jail for a single day.”<\/p>\n

Paetongtarn denied the allegation, pointing out that she only became prime minister several months after her father’s royal pardon.<\/p>\n

Opposition MPs also accused Paetongtarn of avoiding tax and of mishandling the case of 40 Uyghurs sent back to China late last month.<\/p>\n

The repatriation of the Uyghurs sparked international condemnation and led to Washington imposing visa bans on some Thai officials.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra survived a no-confidence vote in parliament on Wednesday, defeating a challenge from opposition parties who accused her of being a puppet of her father, billionaire ex-premier Thaksin Shinawatra. After a two-day censure debate in which the opposition attacked 38-year-old Paetongtarn’s management of the country and her inexperience, MPs voted down […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7356,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20014","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20014"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20014"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20014\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20015,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20014\/revisions\/20015"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20014"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20014"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}