Thai princess gets back to work with youth

PHICHIT: Clad in leg-hugging pants and a jacket studded with glittering hearts, Thai Princess Ubolratana Rajakanya ( pic) performs a cheeky luk thung number that leaves her audience gyrating downstage.

The crowd, already stoked by the country music, squeals when she flings stalks of roses into the air.

“It’s Valentine’s Day today. Let’s love each other, okay?” she says to the teenagers massed in a school in Phichit province for a concert run as part of her anti-drug campaign.

“I’m happy to come see you all in person. Seeing (each other) from television may not be good enough.”

It’s been almost a week since the 67-year-old princess waded into politics, only to have her candidacy for prime minister ruled out by her younger brother, King Maha Vajiralongkorn.

The Thai Raksa Chart party, linked to former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, nominated her as its prime minister candidate on Feb 8, stunning Thais used to treating royalty as above politics and beyond reproach.

If the nomination had gone through, it would have given a massive fillip to Thaksin, who was ousted by a coup in 2006 and remains a polarising figure.

But a statement from the King on Feb 8 said she remained part of the royal family despite relinquishing her title in 1972, and that involving her in politics was inappropriate and unconstitutional.

Her nomination was nullified by the Election Commission on Monday. Thai Raksa Chart, meanwhile, faces dissolution.

Unlike her siblings – King Vajiralongkorn, Princess Sirindhorn and Princess Chulabhorn – Princess Ubolratana is known for her candid public comments.

In 1972, when she renounced her royal title to marry a fellow student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, she told The New York Times she was “no longer royalty and am free”.

She returned to Thailand after her divorce in 1998. In 2001, she gave an interview to Praew, a local maga- zine, that reflected on her life in the United States, which included housework like scrubbing bathrooms.

“Doing so allowed me to see the world out there, even though it brought me grief sometimes.

“Staying here (in Thailand), I have joy in my work, but it’s like I am a woman who is out of bounds, a puppet, a doll for show,” she said.

In 2016, as Thailand’s post-coup government grappled with deep political divisions, she said in an interview on Channel 3: “It will help the current situation if we open our minds, especially if seniors open theirs to accept the reality of the world, to see other people’s ideas, to broaden our attitudes. Then, we can walk together.”