Thailand on edge as ‘black sheep’ poised for takeover
Some have come to fear the crown prince, a man whose poodle was said to have been given a senior military rank
THE death this week of Thailand’s King Bhumibol Adulyadej after a 70-year reign has shone the spotlight on his only son, the crown prince almost certain to succeed to the throne.
Prince Maha Vajiralongkorn, 64, has never generated the popular respect and affection given to his father, potentially complicating efforts for a smooth handover of power.
He has at times had an uneasy relationship with members of the traditional establishment, some of whom are suspicious of his contacts with their bête noire Thaksin Shinawatra, the billionaire prime minister now living in self-imposed exile.
Some Thais have even come to fear a man whose pet poodle was said to have been given a senior military rank, and whose estranged wife’s parents and brothers were jailed for allegedly insulting the royal family.
The crown prince’s personal life even drew criticism from his mother, Queen Sirikit, when she memorably described him in 1981 as a “little bit of a Don Juan”.
The crown prince himself has made few public addresses over the years, in contrast to his father’s once regular broadcasts to the nation.
In a 1986 interview with Thai women’s magazine Dichan, he lamented that he was the subject of rumour and censure, sometimes unfairly. Little of this is ever publicly discussed in Thailand.
All talk of the monarchy there — and particularly the personalities involved — is constrained by strict lèse-majesté laws that threaten 15 years in jail per offence.
These are being wielded increasingly aggressively under the military junta that took power in May 2014.
The crown prince, the second child and only son of Queen Sirikit and King Bhumibol, was educated in the UK and Australia. He qualified as a pilot and served as a Thai army officer but kept a low profile in Thailand and spent years in Germany.
His mother once told US media her “good boy” might have to change his behaviour or resign from the royal family if the Thai people did not approve of his conduct.
In a video leaked in 2009, a pipe-smoking and fully clothed crown prince appears at a table beside a swimming pool with his then third wife Princess Srirasmi, who is wearing only a thong. An attendant produces a cake and the couple sing Happy Birthday as the prince clutches his white poodle, Foo Foo.
The dog is said to have been awarded the title of air chief marshal, according to a 2007 US diplomatic cable published by WikiLeaks.
Vajiralongkorn’s behaviour has dismayed some senior establishment figures.
Several top members of Thailand’s privy council, a powerful royal advisory body, made “quite negative comments” about the crown prince during a meeting with the US ambassador in Bangkok, according to a 2010 US diplomatic cable also published by WikiLeaks.
The conversation included discussions about the prince’s relationship with former prime minister Thaksin, who was ousted in a coup in 2006 and whose sister’s government was toppled by the current military junta in 2014.
Thaksin, who is in self-exile to escape a corruption conviction he says is politically motivated, said in February he had not had any contact with the crown prince for more than six years.
Since the 2014 coup, Vajiralongkorn has taken on a more ceremonial role and has headed royal cycling events known as “Bike for Dad” and “Bike for Mum” to celebrate his parents.
But the projects had a grisly aftermath when a group of people linked to them were accused of using the monarchy’s name for personal gain and at least two of those charged — a senior police officer and a famous fortune-teller who was Bike for Mum’s chief organiser — died in custody in unexplained circumstances.
Vajiralongkorn also hit the headlines when authorities carried out a very public purge starting in 2014 on his by then estranged wife Srirasmi and her relatives.
They were stripped of their royally assigned name, and her parents and three brothers were jailed for allegedly insulting the monarchy.
Vajiralongkorn made headlines when a very public purge was launched against his estranged third wife’s family
Few Thais or experienced foreign observers are making predictions about how the crown prince will rule.
He has an enigmatic quality summed up in his answer when Dichan magazine asked three decades ago if he was upset to be portrayed as the “black sheep” of the family.
Sometimes “black sheep serve a purpose, one of helping others”, he said. “Black sheep help those not-too-white ones seem whiter.” — © The Financial Times
1939-2016
KING Bhumibol Adulyadej of Thailand, who has died aged 88, was the world’s longest-serving constitutional monarch and played a unique role at the centre of national life.
The only Buddhist monarch in the world, King Bhumibol (pronounced Poomipon) was unexpectedly elevated to the throne when just 18 years old on the mysterious death by shooting of his brother Ananda in 1946.
At the time, the monarchy in Thailand was at a low ebb. Absolute monarchy had been abolished following a military coup two decades previously, and for the better part of those years no king had been in residence and republican sentiments were strong.
The young Bhumibol had spent most of his life abroad and at the time of his accession was studying at Lausanne University, Switzerland. The new king, a shy, bespectacled, almost withdrawn young man, took the dynastic name Rama IX and became the ninth sovereign of the Chakri dynasty.
Despite these inauspicious beginnings, over the following decades the king turned Thailand’s new constitutional monarchy into a resounding success. During years of political turmoil and rapid change which saw numerous coups or attempted coups and more than 20 prime ministers, he was seen as a consistent, selfless presence and symbol of national unity. For most of his reign he was credited with being a moderating influence on corrupt politicians, scheming bureaucrats and ambitious generals; it was only recently that some suspected him of interfering in the political process, to the extent of tacitly endorsing a coup in 2006.
In his first address to the Thai parliament after his coronation in 1950, the King urged its members to do everything in their power to prevent the entry into Thailand of communism from neighbouring countries. Deeply conservative by nature and with a strong belief in stability and order, he was convinced that improving the lot of the peasants would be the best protection against communism, and he devoted himself to that end.
He developed an extraordinary rapport with ordinary Thais, and would spend most of every year travelling between a series of palaces around the country. Foreign ambassadors to Bangkok would often be dragged from the capital’s cocktail party circuit to spend days bumping around the outback inspecting drainage schemes.
In 1977, during a visit to a southern province, a bomb exploded near the royal entourage, but the king was unharmed.
The king of Thailand has little direct power under the constitution, but on several occasions Bhumibol used his considerable personal and moral authority to resolve political crises that threatened stability and to try to inch Thailand nearer to a stable democracy.
In 1992, for example, when a bloody cycle of pro-democracy protest and military repression seemed about to spiral out of control, the king summoned General Suchina Kraprayoon, the leader of the junta, and his principal civilian opponent.
In a nationally televised humiliation, the two men crawled on their knees to the feet of Bhumibol for a royal reprimand: “You have not followed the people,” the king scolded quietly. “You talk democracy but you don’t do anything about it.” In one telling moment, the king defused the confrontation, paved the way for fresh elections and destroyed the two men’s careers.
Bhumibol took great care to recreate the mystique that had surrounded Thai kings of old and revived ceremonies that had not been used since the time of his grandfather, Rama V.
He demanded, and usually received, absolute respect from his subjects. Every Thai house contained a prominent photograph of the monarch, and it was considered impolite for a commoner’s feet to point directly at the picture.
But it was not just his good works and popularity that boosted the royal image. That was also protected by a draconian lèse-majesté law which made it an offence to “defame, insult or threaten” any member of the royal family.
Prince Somdet Phra Chao Yu Hua Bhumibol Adulyadej was born on December 5 1927 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the son of Prince Mahidol of Songkla, half-brother and heir of the last absolute monarch of Thailand. The Chakri dynasty into which he was born dates back to 1782. Bhumibol’s great-grandfather, King Mongkut, was splendidly, if inaccurately, brought to life in Anna and the King of
Siam and, later, The King and I. Bhumibol’s father, Prince Mahidol, had married a Siamese commoner. At the time of Bhumibol’s birth, he was studying public health and medicine at Harvard.
Bhumibol was the youngest of the family’s three children, having an elder brother and sister. At the time of his birth, he was several steps removed from succession to the Thai throne, and his elder brother, Prince Ananda, had precedence.
Mahidol died in 1928, when his son was a year old, and the family returned to Thailand where, as a young boy, Bhumibol briefly attended Mater Dei Primary School. But in 1933, following a military coup, King Prajadhipok ordered the family to move to Switzerland.
In 1932, following the coup, Prajadhipok agreed to a new constitution that would replace Thailand’s absolute monarchy with a constitutional one, and in 1935 he abdicated in favour of his nephew, Prince Ananda, then 10 years old.
During the greater part of World War 2, Thailand was controlled by a pro-Japanese puppet government, so that princes Ananda and Bhumibol did not return there until late 1945, when Ananda went to Bangkok for his coronation.
Before the ceremony could be performed, Ananda was found in bed with a bullet in his skull and a revolver by his side. Despite a seven-year murder trial and the execution of three junior palace staff, there has never been a satisfactory explanation of why he died, and the death was officially ruled an accident. A book which suggested that Ananda killed himself because he had been forbidden to marry a Swiss girlfriend was banned in Thailand.
As Ananda’s brother, Bhumibol was named his successor. Two months later, after the legislature had appointed a twoman regency council to rule pending his coming of age, he returned to Switzerland to complete his education.
When Bhumibol attained his majority in December 1946, the Siamese government allocated several hundred thousand dollars for the ceremonial cremation of the remains of Ananda, a necessary preliminary to the coronation of his successor.
Unsettled conditions in 1947 following a coup d’état forced a postponement, and court astrologers settled on March 2 1949 as the most auspicious date.
But in October 1948, Bhumibol was seriously injured in a motor accident in Lausanne which left him blind in one eye and paralysed half his face. Both cremation and coronation had to be postponed once more.
By the time of his coronation, the king had married Princess Mom Rachawong Sirikit Kitiyakara, a distant cousin. In the 1960s she would be described as one of the 10 most beautiful women in the world.
King Bhumibol remained sensitive to the way in which Thailand was perceived by the outside world. As well as making numerous state visits, he often employed his powers of clemency to secure the release of Westerners in the country’s jails.
He liked to keep abreast of developments in science and culture. He was an accomplished painter and photographer, and was the first member of the Thai royal family to be granted a patent for an invention, an apparatus for water treatment.
Although the king continued to be revered by most Thais, the palace had recently come in for some discreet criticism. There were allegations that the royal advisers interfered in politics, specifically that they played a part in inspiring the bloodless military coup of 2006 that ousted the democratically elected government of Thaksin Shinawatra, who had been prime minister for five years.
In late 2008 both of Bangkok’s airports were closed by antigovernment protesters, and in April 2009 100 000 demonstrators demanded the resignation of the king’s chief adviser, General Prem Tinsulanonda, whom they accused of masterminding the 2006 coup — which some believed that the king had privately endorsed.
Bhumibol and Sirikit had one son and three daughters who, according to official sources, were all “deeply involved in activities to better the lot of the Thai people and are themselves loved and respected”.
The truth was rather different. As a student in the US, the king’s eldest daughter, Princess Ubol Ratana, fell in love with an American fellow student and settled in America as plain Mrs Jensen. Her photograph never appears in public in Thailand.
His son, Crown Prince Maha Vajiralongkorn, was widely regarded as a playboy. After divorcing his first wife, claiming that she spent too much time playing table tennis, he married a commoner by whom he already had teenage children. That marriage ended when his second wife walked out.
The Thai constitution was amended in the 1970s to allow a woman to succeed to the throne, and there were said to be many in Thailand who would have liked to have seen the crown pass to the king’s second daughter, Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn. In recent years, however, the crown prince’s standing has improved as he assumed more of his father’s ceremonial duties.
In October 2007 the king suffered a minor stroke; the following year he was unable to make his annual birthday speech. Rumours around his health persisted.
He is survived by Sirikit and their four children. He is succeeded to the throne by Vajiralongkorn. — ©
Some suspected him of interfering in politics, to the extent of tacitly endorsing a coup in 2006