[RIslander]

Sad news for Thailand today. Anyone who has ever traveled to the country will know how revered and loved he was. As an American, I was always impressed by an entire nation showing such affection for a leader. I do not know much about his political agenda, but I do know he was a strong promoter of nationalism and the safeguarding of Thai culture. That's something we can respect here on RVF.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/10/th...23042.html

[Excelsior]

RIP. This is big news. Thai markets have already been taking a hit because of his condition.

Let's see how Thailand handles this transition. I'm honestly a little worried for the country. Knew it was only a matter of time, but there are plenty of observers who wondered how smoothly a transition would go given how universally revered the King was. He was like a glue in the midst of a lot of mess, the one unifying figure who everyone could agree to respect despite deep political and socio-economic divisions. It seems like the transition shouldn't be a very rocky one with the 64 year old Crown Prince Vajiralongkorn supported fairly broadly, but we'll have to see if he can carry the flag the way his father did.

[Excelsior]

For those unsure about some of the concerns I mentioned with the crown prince...

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/o...rince-king

Quote:

Thailand's heir apparent Maha Vajiralongkorn raises fears – and eyebrows
Crown prince is best known for making his poodle Foo Foo an air chief marshal, but his darker side has long caused concerns about his potential rule

Thailand’s Crown Prince Maha Vajiralongkorn, a three-times divorced playboy who made his pet poodle an air chief marshal in the Thai military, poses perhaps the biggest challenge for both the country’s monarchists and its ruling junta in coming weeks, following the death of his father, King Bhumibol Adulyadej.

Vajiralongkorn, who has asked for some time to mourn with the Thai people before his appointment, was born to be king. However, though he trained at Australia’s Duntroom military college and boasts a string of military titles and a pilot’s licence, for decades he has shown little interest in the public duties that will be expected of one of the world’s most revered monarchies.

Instead Vajiralongkorn has built up a reputation for womanising, extravagance, bizarre self-indulgence and occasional cruelty, including to his own children, several of whom have been stripped of their names and titles and live in exile.

His exploits hit international headlines in 2007, when a leaked video showed his then consort, Princess Srirasm, performing near-naked at a birthday party with pet poodle Foo Foo. The canine air chief marshal, who died last year, was cremated after four days of Buddhist rites.

More recently the prince was photographed at Munich airport, accepting salutes from the pilot and other aircraft staff while dressed in jeans and a tight crop top, showing off a torso covered in temporary tattoos.

The country’s fierce lèse-majesté laws, officially designed to protect the much-loved Bhumibol and his family from defamation, have kept the prince’s stranger exploits out of the Thai media, but the cover-up is only cosmetic.

Stories about Vajiralongkorn are a gossip mainstay nationwide, and he is loathed by many of his future subjects, including the elite circles expected to crown him and then help him rule.

“The lèse-majesté law criminalises publication of the prince’s exploits, but despite this, or indeed because of this, Thais have voracious interest in informal royal information and gossip, which they share privately with those they trust,” said Andrew McGregor Marshall, a British journalist who has written extensively on the monarchy.

“Almost all Thais know about the exploits of the crown prince, who has been a hated figure in Thailand since the 1970s.”

Distaste for the prince was spelt out in a leaked US diplomatic cable from 2010, in which members of the Thai privy council openly discussed their concerns about Vajiralongkorn including his meddling in politics and “embarrassing financial transactions”.

“Anand [Panyarachun, the former prime minister] added that the consensus view among many Thai was that the Crown Prince could not stop either, nor would he be able, at age 57, to rectify his behaviour,” the cable reads.

In conversations with the then US ambassador summarised in the cable, Thai officials also discussed the hope shared by many in the elite – but since all-but abandoned – that the king would appoint his widely respected daughter, Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn, as heir. Thailand has never had a ruling queen, and the laws of succession specify a male heir.

“If the Crown Prince were to die, anything could happen, and maybe Prathep [Sirindhorn] could succeed,” the cable quotes the late air chief marshal Siddhi Savetsila saying “almost hopefully”.

At the heart of the concern about Vajiralongkorn’s ascension to power at that time was not just his erratic track record, but fears of his personal relationship with ousted former prime minister and business tycoon Thaksin Shinawatra.

Thaksin presented the crown prince with a luxury car when he was first elected in 2001. Fears that Vajiralongkorn might find a support base among the populist politician’s voters are believed to have contributed to the coups that removed first Thaksin and then his sister Yingluck Shinawatra, also a prime minister, from power in 2006 and 2014.

However, since then the generals have been courting Vajiralongkorn, apparently preferring to shore up ties with a man almost certain to become king than leave him vulnerable to overtures from an exile and political rival.

Their efforts include a public relations campaign to bolster his reputation, including mass cycle ride tributes to his mother and father. They presented the prince as the image of energetic filial devotion, a counterpoint to stories of decadence and persistent rumours of ill-health details in another leaked US diplomatic cable revealed by WikiLeaks and dated November 2009.

The junta’s interest in the crown prince appears to have been matched by a growing taste for power from the future ruler himself, whose views on how Thailand should be governed are almost entirely opaque.

“Vajiralongkorn has over the years demonstrated little interest in political and royal affairs,” said Professor Pavin Chachavalpongpun in a recent paper. “[His] life is an elusive study because Thais know little about his views on politics, or his vision of the future of the monarchy.”

He has shown none of his father’s charisma or public commitment to serve, however, apparently preferring the use of fear and violence intimidation to bolster his position. In recent months have brought purges of members of his own and his father’s inner circle, and his former wife’s family.

Marshall warned that this ruthlessness could be far more destabilising to Thailand than the dissolute, distracted ruler anticipated by many of the elite.

“With an incompetent junta in power, providing impunity to a loathed prince who is increasingly out of control, the likelihood of some kind of uprising seems very high,” he said.

“In my view, it is probable that we will face a so-called hard landing in terms of Thailand’s transition after Bhumibol’s death. Instead of a soft landing of peaceful evolution towards a democratic constitutional monarchy, we are likely to see a violent transition.”

[Phoenix]

Hopefully his son now takes the opportunity to grow the fuck up.

[SlickyBoy]

This definitely is not good. His son is well known as a world class screw off and his daughter is ineligible to take the throne since she married a farang. The king is (was) a strong symbol of Thai unity, something critical in the face of Islamic factionism present in the southern areas of the country as well as other concerns.

Though the king does not have formal political power it is imperative the son grow the hell up and keep things together or the military may never let go, even though they would actually like to hand control to the civilians - something they have been trying to do.

[SamuelBRoberts]

"Hopefully his son now takes the opportunity to grow the fuck up."

Is it even possible for someone to grow the fuck up at age 64?

[Stallion]

This transition is going to be interesting.


I was surprised when talking with Thai friends... how much they loved the old king, and how much they distrusted his son. Everyone was thinking that the red shirts would be very empowered when the old king died, as a lot of his supporters would not support the son.

[Phoenix]

(10-13-2016 12:42 PM)SamuelBRoberts Wrote:  

Is it even possible for someone to grow the fuck up at age 64?

I sure hope so, lest that place degenerate into a typical democratic retard-hole. One democratic government away from Europing itself with some local variety of muslim terrorist horde.

[nomadbrah]

Thailand is a KINGDOM based upon multiple ethnicities. Many Thai people are ethnically Burmese, Lao, Khmer, Malay and so on. It is basically the King's doing that the country hasn't succumbed to ethnic strife long ago. Thaksin stoked up ethnic sentiment among Northern Thais and North-Eastern Thais. Without the King, the military will not have the moral support to deny the Thaksin coalition power?

[Dusty]

He was born in Boston MA I believe.

[Lance Blastoff]

Is it true that Bangkok's bars, restaurants and clubs will all be shut down for weeks?

[booshala]

(10-13-2016 12:42 PM)SamuelBRoberts Wrote:  

"Hopefully his son now takes the opportunity to grow the fuck up."

Is it even possible for someone to grow the fuck up at age 64?

For real, he's already an old man... not fucking likely that he's going to change his temperament or behavior in his mid 60's.

All the Thais I know have expressed nothing but loathing/contempt towards Vajiralongkorn... his marital/familial exploits are well known but apparently he has done some wild shit with several female celebrities as well: rape, sexual mutilation, etc... then uses les majestes laws to protect any backtalk. Sounds like the shit kings did in the middle ages.

Gonna be in Bangkok for a weekend in early November. Missed the bombing at the Erawan shrine by 6 hours last time I was in town. Crazy times for Thailand...

[Hell_Is_Like_Newark]

He was born in the USA. Not sure what city though

[Hell_Is_Like_Newark]

The Crown Prince is psychopathic horror show. He has been killing off people who know him and where his skeletons are buried. Some upper class Thais have fled to avoid "dying by suicide".

Dark times for the Kingdom.

[Que enspastic]

The Thais don't respect someone just because they are King.

They respected King Bhumibol because he was worthy of great respect. Unreproachable character, stylish, a polyglot, jazz maestro, decent photographer, agricultural innovator and developmental sponsor. They felt incredible Thai pride through him. He was the guy they could look up to as a father figure for the nation, beyond the bullshit politics that poison Thai society and afflicts the military who run the show. Without him there would have been civil war by now.

The Prince is a deviant and crook. At the very least he is a playboy who embarrasses conservative sentiments. The Thais have been fearing this moment for years

[RIslander]

(10-13-2016 03:11 PM)Hell_Is_Like_Newark Wrote:  

He was born in the USA. Not sure what city though

Cambridge, MA. His father was studying public health at Harvard.

[Handsome Creepy Eel]

What color will the revolution in Thailand be called? Poppy red?

[Mentavious]

Could his younger sister take over?

They don't exactly like the next in line.

[iop890]

Fuck.

The country is going to go full 'Game of Thrones' now. Complete with muslim zombies, just coming from the south in this case.

[CodyB]

What is happening now is uprecedented.

A country so social media orientated with a royal family so deeply respected has never lost it's ruler. The path ahead is so uncertain and things like nightlife could shut down for at least a few weeks.

[El Chinito loco]

Things could get very ugly and weird in Thailand down the road.

Everything there is to say has been said about the Crown Prince. He's an extremely vile person and even has shady business connections with various dictators in Africa.

I would not be terribly surprised if Thailand enters an extremely bloody political era. There's noone that can really rein the crown prince in now.

The military junta is already just an institution of the royals put into power. Now with the King dead the CP has full and absolute power over the country and he's very much a sociopath on top of that.

Terrifying.

[Que enspastic]

The CP doesn't have "full and absolute power". It's a contest between various military factions from here on. That's why it's scary. At the moment there is no such thing as a Thai Republican. In a few years from now there could be millions of them pitting themselves against millions of monarchists, both camps led by military factions.

[Kamaki4]

(10-14-2016 12:58 AM)Que enspastic Wrote:  

The CP doesn't have "full and absolute power". It's a contest between various military factions from here on. That's why it's scary. At the moment there is no such thing as a Thai Republican. In a few years from now there could be millions of them pitting themselves against millions of monarchists, both camps led by military factions.

You shouldn't post if you don't know what you are talking about and how the real power structure works here.

[Que enspastic]

Neither should you mate.

Crown Prince has been linked to Thaksin, who along with his sister were deposed via coup d'état. Lese majeste laws for the time being are effective at silencing opposition. I take issue with the assertion that the man wields absolute power over some of the heavy hitters in the military wary about his succession. He does not.

[El Chinito loco]

(10-14-2016 12:58 AM)Que enspastic Wrote:  

The CP doesn't have "full and absolute power". It's a contest between various military factions from here on. That's why it's scary. At the moment there is no such thing as a Thai Republican. In a few years from now there could be millions of them pitting themselves against millions of monarchists, both camps led by military factions.

I think you severely underestimate how powerful the royal family is.

Every Thai coup that has happened in recent history was given the royal greenlight before it was allowed to occur. The junta in power right now is there because of royal dealings behind the scene to push out Yingluck and before that Thaksin. Thaksin tried to subvert the old elite with his new money empire and friends. Look what happened.

If you think royals don't have anything to do with coups then I have a bridge to sell you.

The Crown prince isn't merely _a_ royal he is the direct successor to Bhumibol and Thais take that very seriously. Even loyalists who don't like the idea of the C.P. as a man will fall in line. There is a whole line of families with titles and other honorifics who have supported the King's family for centuries...through war and peace and through every succession controversy imaginable. That isn't going to change overnight.

They are the largest landowners in the nation. Crown property bureau is immensely wealthy. Land = power in SEA. This is a concept that is a hard thing for outsiders to grasp it's very feudal.

King Bhumibol had a fairly soft but powerful touch when it came to populist movements (Northeast red shirt politics) and allowed them into government as long as things didn't get out of hand. However his son will probably take a much harsher stance towards dissent.

The royal family isn't merely above the law in Thailand. They are Thailand and make a lot of the rules and politics that go on. A royal title and bestowed honorifics still means a lot in Thailand. I know a family that actually has one of those minor honorifics from a long time ago and it commands a lot of respect even now. Now magnify that by about 1000x and you get the power of the royal family. It's true that most Thais don't like the C.P. but they have deep reverence for most of the other family members. A large populist revolt won't happen for this reason either.

I'm all ears though if you believe there are certain military figureheads that can challenge the royal family directly i'd be curious as to who that is.

I recommend reading the wikileaks embassy cables with Thailand. It's really interesting.