Thai princess says sorry as PM bid ruffles feathers

bangkok — A Thai princess has apologised after her short-lived candidacy for prime minister earned a royal rebuke from her brother — the king — and sent jitters across the politically febrile country just weeks before elections.

Thailand has been mired in political drama since Friday, when Princess Ubolratana’s name was submitted as a prime ministerial candidate by the Thai Raksa Chart Party.

The party is allied with the Shinawatra clan, which has won all elections since 2001 but whose patron, the billionaire ex-premier Thaksin, lives in self-exile to avoid jail.

The Election Commission on Wednesday asked the constitutional court to dissolve a party that proposed a princess as candidate for prime minister. The commission filed a request with the constitutional court to disband Thai Raksa Chart for breaching the political parties law by bringing a royal family

Princess Ubolratana

member into politics. In an Instagram post late Tuesday the 67-year-old princess apologised for her role in the drama.

“I’m sorry that my genuine intention to help work for the country and fellow Thai people has created a problem that shouldn’t happen in this era,” she wrote. Ubolratana is the first-born of former king Bhumibol Adulyadej, but she gave up her royal titles when she married an American in 1972. —