Thaksin’s Cambodia Problem Endlessly

The deadly clash between Thai and Cambodian forces this week exposed a fundamental question that Thai voters have been avoiding for two decades: how long will they tolerate a political dynasty that consistently prioritizes personal business relationships with Cambodia’s authoritarian Hun family over Thailand’s national sovereignty and democratic integrity? As a Cambodian soldier lay dead in disputed frontier trenches, the familiar pattern emerged not of military generals manufacturing crises, but of the Shinawatra family’s problematic alliance with Southeast Asia’s most entrenched authoritarian dynasty creating genuine conflicts that undermine Thai democracy from within. When Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra finds herself defending her family’s intimate relationship with Hun Manet—son of Cambodia’s four-decade strongman Hun Sen—she represents the culmination of a political project that has systematically confused personal loyalty networks with democratic governance.

The challenge we must confront is stark and uncomfortable. Thaksin Shinawatra has spent two decades presenting himself as the champion of Thai democracy against military authoritarianism, yet his closest international political relationship is with the Hun family, whose rule in Cambodia represents everything democracy supposedly opposes. Hun Sen has maintained power since 1985 through systematic suppression of opposition parties, media control, electoral manipulation, and the gradual transformation of Cambodia into a family business rather than a democratic state. When Hun Manet inherited his father’s position as Prime Minister in 2023, it institutionalized dynastic rule that makes a mockery of democratic principles. The question becomes unavoidable: what does it mean for Thai democracy when its most popular political leader maintains intimate personal relationships with leaders who embody the antithesis of democratic values?

Thaksin-Sen Authoritarianism

This contradiction extends far beyond diplomatic protocol or regional cooperation. The relationship between Thaksin and the Hun family represents a shared understanding of politics as personal power networks that transcend national boundaries and democratic accountability. Both families have transformed their respective countries’ political systems into vehicles for dynastic control, where blood relationships matter more than electoral mandates and personal loyalty trumps institutional integrity. The Shinawatra family’s dominance of Thai politics mirrors the Hun family’s control of Cambodian politics in ways that should deeply concern anyone who takes democratic governance seriously.

Consider the implications of this parallel development across the Thai-Cambodian border. In Cambodia, Hun Sen spent decades dismantling democratic institutions while maintaining the facade of electoral legitimacy, gradually transforming a post-conflict democracy into a one-party state where opposition leaders face imprisonment, exile, or worse. His son Hun Manet now continues this project with the added legitimacy of Western education and technocratic credentials. In Thailand, Thaksin has pursued a different but related strategy, using genuine popular support to build a political movement that increasingly resembles a family business, where his sister Yingluck and now his daughter Paetongtarn serve as proxies for his continued control despite his legal exile.

The 2001 Memorandum of Understanding on maritime boundaries becomes far more troubling when viewed through this lens of personal relationships overriding national interests. Critics who claim this framework compromises Thai territorial sovereignty aren’t necessarily engaging in manufactured nationalism—they may be responding to legitimate concerns about how personal connections between the Shinawatra and Hun families translate into policy decisions that prioritize bilateral harmony over Thai national interests. When Thaksin’s personal friendship with Hun Sen influences Thailand’s negotiating position on territorial disputes, we witness the subordination of democratic accountability to personal diplomacy in ways that fundamentally compromise popular sovereignty.

The current border tensions reveal how this problematic relationship creates real security challenges for Thailand. Unlike the crises that critics often describe, these conflicts emerge from the genuine contradiction between Thaksin’s personal loyalty to the Hun family and his responsibility to represent Thai national interests. When Cambodian forces take aggressive positions in disputed areas, Thailand’s military leadership faces an impossible situation: respond forcefully and risk damaging the personal relationships that Thaksin prioritizes, or appear weak and invite further territorial encroachment. This dynamic transforms legitimate security concerns into political weapons that can be used against any Shinawatra-led government, but the weapon exists because of the Shinawatra family’s own choices about where their ultimate loyalties lie.

Thai Voters Elects Their Own Oppressors

The implications extend to fundamental questions about democratic representation and national sovereignty. Democratic theory assumes that elected leaders will prioritize the interests of their constituents and the integrity of their national institutions. When political leaders maintain personal relationships that potentially compromise these responsibilities, they violate the basic social contract that legitimizes democratic governance. Thai voters who support the Shinawatra family believing they are defending democracy against military authoritarianism may actually be enabling a different form of authoritarianism—one that subordinates national democratic institutions to transnational personal networks.

This analysis becomes even more troubling when we consider the economic dimensions of the Thaksin-Hun Sen relationship. Both leaders have built their political power through the systematic blending of state resources with personal business interests, creating networks of patronage that extend across national boundaries. Thaksin’s business empire has significant investments in Cambodia, while Hun Sen’s family controls vast portions of the Cambodian economy through positions that blur the line between public service and private enrichment. Their personal friendship facilitates economic arrangements that may serve their mutual interests while potentially compromising the economic sovereignty of both countries.

The tragedy for Thai democracy lies in how this dynamic makes military intervention appear not as an assault on democratic institutions, but as a necessary defense of national sovereignty against leaders whose primary loyalties lie elsewhere. When Thaksin’s personal relationships with authoritarian leaders create genuine conflicts with Thai national interests, military leaders can present their interventions as patriotic duty rather than political opportunism. This transforms the traditional narrative of coups as attacks on democracy into a more complex story where democratic legitimacy itself becomes compromised by leaders who prioritize personal networks over national accountability.

Thai voters face a dilemma that standard democratic theory cannot easily resolve. Supporting the Shinawatra family means endorsing leaders whose personal relationships may compromise Thai sovereignty and democratic integrity. Opposing them means risking military rule that obviously violates democratic norms. This impossible choice reflects the deeper problem of how democratic institutions respond when elected leaders themselves violate the principles that legitimize democratic governance.

The international community’s response to Thailand’s recurring political crises reflects a similar confusion about how to respond when the defense of democracy requires opposing democratically elected leaders. Western governments and international organizations consistently criticize military coups against Shinawatra governments while remaining largely silent about the problematic nature of the Shinawatra family’s relationships with authoritarian leaders. This selective blindness enables the very dynamics that make military intervention appear necessary, creating a cycle where international support for Thai democracy actually undermines democratic accountability.

Cambodia’s threat to invoke the International Court of Justice over border disputes illustrates how personal relationships between the Shinawatra and Hun families transform bilateral conflicts into tests of Thai democratic legitimacy. If Thailand’s government cannot negotiate effectively with Cambodia because of concerns about appearing to favor personal relationships over national interests, the ICJ intervention becomes a mechanism for external adjudication of disputes that should be resolved through normal diplomatic channels. This represents a fundamental failure of democratic governance, where elected leaders’ personal commitments prevent them from effectively representing their constituents’ interests.

The scheduled meeting of the Cambodia-Thailand Joint Boundary Commission represents more than just another diplomatic negotiation—it serves as a test of whether democratic Thailand can maintain its sovereignty while being led by politicians whose personal loyalties extend beyond its borders. If Paetongtarn Shinawatra negotiates too aggressively, she risks damaging the personal relationships that her family has prioritized for decades. If she appears too accommodating, she confirms critics’ fears that Shinawatra governments cannot effectively defend Thai interests against Cambodian pressure.

This impossible balancing act reveals the fundamental flaw in the Shinawatra political project. Democratic leadership requires the ability to subordinate personal relationships to public responsibilities, but the Shinawatra family’s political identity depends on maintaining personal loyalty networks that transcend national boundaries. These competing demands create an irreconcilable contradiction that manifests in recurring political crises, territorial disputes, and military interventions that might be avoided if Thailand’s democratic leaders prioritized national accountability over personal relationships.

Will Military Intervene Again?

The deeper question concerns whether democracy can survive when its most successful practitioners treat democratic institutions as vehicles for personal power rather than mechanisms for popular sovereignty. The Shinawatra family’s political success demonstrates the appeal of leaders who combine democratic rhetoric with personal charisma and patronage networks, but their intimate relationships with authoritarian leaders suggest they understand power in ways that fundamentally contradict democratic principles.

Thai democracy’s future depends not on whether the military will intervene again, but on whether Thai voters will continue supporting political leaders whose personal relationships compromise the very democratic values they claim to represent. The Cambodian soldier who died this week becomes a casualty not just of border tensions, but of the broader failure to resolve the contradiction between personal loyalty networks and democratic accountability that defines contemporary Thai politics.

Until Thailand produces democratic leaders who prioritize national institutions over personal relationships, the country will remain trapped in cycles of crisis that make military intervention appear as a necessary evil rather than a fundamental assault on democratic governance. The countdown continues not toward another coup, but toward the moment when Thai voters must choose between democratic accountability and personal loyalty to leaders whose ultimate allegiances remain perpetually unclear.

Prem Singh Gill
Prem Singh Gill is a Visiting Scholar in Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta, Indonesia, and in Thai Public Universities