Thousands protest in Bangkok calling for Thai PM to resign

The call has sparked public anger and a key partner in her ruling coalition has quit. Paetongtarn apologised, but defended the call as a "negotiation technique".

Before leaving to visit flood-hit northern Thailand, Paetongtarn told reporters it is the people's "right to protest, as long as it's peaceful".

Saturday's rally was the largest of its kind since the ruling Pheu Thai party came to power in 2023.

Thousands braved the monsoon rain and blocked the roads at the Victory Monument war memorial in Bangkok, waving Thai flags and holding placards with slogans such as "PM is enemy of state".

Protest leader Parnthep Pourpongpan said the prime minister "should step aside because she is the problem".

Seri Sawangmue, 70, travelled overnight by bus from the country's north to join the protest.

He told AFP news agency that he was there "to protect Thailand's sovereignty and to say the PM is unfit".

"I've lived through many political crises and I know where this is going," he added.

Paetongtarn has said she will no longer hold future calls with the former Cambodian leader, but Parnthep told Reuters that many Thai people felt she and her influential father were being manipulated by Hun Sen.

On Tuesday the Constitutional Court will decide whether to take up a petition by senators seeking Paetongtarn's removal for alleged unprofessionalism over the Hun Sen call.

Hun Sen said he had shared the audio clip with 80 politicians and one of them leaked it. He later shared the entire 17-minute recording on his Facebook page.

The call was about a recent dispute between Cambodia and Thailand, which saw tensions increase in May after a Cambodian soldier was killed in a border clash, plunging ties to their lowest in more than a decade.

But the tension between the two nations dates back more than a century, when the borders were drawn after the French occupation of Cambodia.

Both have imposed border restrictions on each other, while Cambodia has banned Thai imports from food to electricity, as well as Thai television and cinema dramas.

Despite the tensions between their countries, the Shinawatras' friendship with the Hun family goes back decades, and Hun Sen and Paetongtarn's father consider each other "godbrothers".