Thai leadership, a look at the implications of the struggle to control
the royal succession.
The past ten years of political turmoil in Thailand have revolved around
several contentious challenges. A growing, politically empowered, and vocal
working class in Thailand’s provinces has clashed with traditional Bangkok
elites. Shifts in Thailand’s constitutions have led to a two-party system,
rather than the old multi-party politics, but the two-party system has
struggled to effectively represent the interests of a majority of Thais. The
Thai military, once thought to be under civilian control, has reasserted its
power throughout the past decade, while other institutions have failed to
control the military’s resurgence. Violent street protests have emerged as a
weapon to bring down governments, with no consequences for the violent
demonstrators, a development that only fosters more violent protests.
But the
past decade of crisis also has stemmed from a struggle among Thai elites to
control the royal succession, after the passing of King Bhumibhol, who
will be eighty-seven on Friday. The king has been on the throne since 1946,
making him the longest-reigning monarch (or any head of state) in the world.
Bhumibhol today is physically incapacitated – some rumors suggest he has
Parkinson’s disease, while others suggest he has had a series of strokes – and
rarely appears in public, and it is unclear whether he remains mentally lucid.
Although Thailand is technically a constitutional monarchy, like the
Netherlands or Great Britain, in reality the palace in Thailand wields enormous
political power behind the scenes, and also controls vast amounts of land,
stakes in blue-chip Thai companies, and other wealth. Forbes estimates that the Thai monarch is
the richest royal in the world, worth some $30 billion.
In a new
book A Kingdom in Crisis: Thailand’s Struggle for Democracy in
the Twenty-First Century, former longtime Reuters journalist
Andrew MacGregor Marshall effectively summarizes this royal clash. Drawing upon
his sources within the palace and leaked diplomatic cables discussing the royal
family, Marshall writes that the impetus for a decade-long struggle by
Bangkok’s traditional royal elites, who have supported two coups since 2006, is
to make sure that traditional royalists, and the military, are running the
country when the king dies. In addition, Marshall suggests that traditional
elites harbor hopes that, in the succession, they will be able to maneuver the
king’s daughter, Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn, into power as the ruling
monarch. By putting the princess into power elites would bypass the heir
anointed decades ago by Bhumibhol, Crown Prince Maha Vajiralongkorn. Marshall
suggests that Thaksin, meanwhile, long ago formed an alliance with the crown
prince, and if the crown prince becomes king he could rehabilitate Thaksin and
allow pro-Thaksin populist parties to dominate politics.
Marshall’s
book is a short but provocative and entertaining examination behind the palace
curtain, though his use of unnamed sources and the inability to check his
claims makes it hard to evaluate his theses. He offers only modest evidence for
his theory that royalist elites want to maneuver the princess into power. In
addition, he tends to underplay the conflict between the rural working class
and Bangkok elites as a driving factor in Thai politics, as compared to the
succession struggle. Still, the book’s reportage and analysis are unique.
The fear
of the crown prince’s future reign stems from several factors. Elites fear a
return of Thaksin in part because Thaksin’s effective politics have left the
Democrat Party in shambles. More genuinely democratic elites also have opposed
Thaksin because, as prime minister, he worked to undermine the country’s
liberal institutions and to concentrate power in his hands. (Of course, tossing
out Thaksin and replacing him with a junta is an even worse remedy for
strengthening the rule of law.) Beyond the elites, most Thais also have never
known another king, and the palace and Thai elites have created such a cult of
personality around Bhumibhol that they have fostered an existential sense of
panic among Thais about a post-Bhumibhol world. In addition, the crown prince
has for decades acquired a reputation as an alleged hothead, womanizer, and
poor decision-maker, in contrast to Bhumibhol, who despite flaws has generally
been a moderating influence on the kingdom. Among other foibles, the crown
prince allegedly used his own planes to blocked the plane of a visiting
Japanese prime minister on the tarmac in Bangkok in a fit of pique, threw a
lavish birthday party for his pet dog at which his wife appeared topless in a
leaked video, and stormed home early from a visit to Japan after he felt
subjected to a series of minor protocol slights by Thailand’s most important
investor.
Now, in
recent weeks, this succession struggle appears to be coming into public view.
Of course, Thais are prohibited from publicly talking or writing about the monarchy
by the harshest lese majeste laws in the world. But this past week’s news that
the military junta has arrested a group of senior policemen linked to the crown
prince’s wife, Princess Srirasmi, and the crown prince’s public announcement
that his wife’s family may no longer use their royally-given name (a kind of
title) have shaken the country. Although all Thai-language and English-language
newspapers have reported on the arrests and the crown prince’s order, believed
to be the first step toward divorcing his third wife, they have studiously
avoided mentioning the link between the policemen and Princess Srirasmi, or
even the fact that the family banned from using their royal title is actually
Srirasmi’s family. Still, every Thai understands that these events impact
Srirasmi and the succession as well.
Further,
the dramatic turn of events seems to suggest that the crown prince is not only
going to divorce his wife – he allegedly has a fourth wife waiting in Germany –
but also abandon his alliance with Thaksin and throw in with the junta and
traditional royalists. In my next post, I will examine why these events suggest
a shift in royal politics and what this shift will mean for Thai politics in
general in the near term.
Joshua
Kurlantzick is a fellow for Southeast Asia at the Council on Foreign
Relations. This post appears courtesy of CFR.org.
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