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POLITICS-THAILAND: King’s Poor Health Adds to Gloom

Marwaan Macan-Markar

BANGKOK, Dec 5 2008 (IPS) - During his over 60 year reign, Thailand’s revered monarch, King Bhumibol Adulyadej, has won the hearts of his subjects for being an all-wise, all-knowing father-figure. It is to Bhumibol that Thais turn when the country is in trouble.

But that was not to be on the eve of Bhumibol’s birthday, Dec.5, when instead of the speech he customarily delivers, there was silence.

In recent years, his speeches have included warnings about the evils of smoking, concerns about the spread of narcotics and a statement that nobody is above criticism -not even a king.

And the public reaction to the king’s silence on the evening before he turned 81 has been a mix of shock, worry and tears. Such feelings stem from Thais being forced to accept that Bhumibol is in his twilight years and ailing. His silence on Thursday was the result of a bout of bronchitis and an inflamed oesophagus.

Yet the sombre mood also revealed something more: many Thais had looked forward to this year’s speech following the political crisis that has roiled the country for over six months, almost pushing it towards the brink of chaos. Bhumibol’s sudden silence, the first break in six decades, added to the gloom.

‘’I am very worried, because this has never happened before. In the past, no matter what, the king always gives his speech full of advice about morals and values that fit the country at that time,’’ says Maneerat Chuenchailek, a programme manager at an electronics company. ‘’Thais always look forward to his words of guidance.’’

Such sentiments in Bangkok were echoed in the northern city of Chiang Mai, where people were in shock, some crying, when the news spread close to 6 p.m. that the king had not spoken at the annual birthday ceremony.

’We were waiting for our king to speak and then we heard the bad news. There was a feeling of shock and loss; some people I know even shed tears,’’ says Kingkan Kaewfun, an executive secretary at an information technology company.

‘’This year’s speech was one many here were looking forward to because of the problems we have had for the past months,’’ she added. ‘’We hoped it would decrease the tension among Thais.’’

Newspapers comments were also along similar lines. ‘’The desire and anxiety to receive his wisdom has been even stronger this year because the country has been embroiled in perhaps its worst-ever political crisis,’’ wrote ‘The Nation’, an English-language daily, in a commentary on Friday.

Such expectations come from a culture that has taken root in Thailand over the past decades, where the king’s speech has come to be accepted as ‘’the views of the highest authority in the country,’’ says Thanet Aphornsuvan, dean of the liberal arts faculty at Bangkok’s Thammasat University.

The king was substituted by his son, Crown Prince Maha Vajiralongkorn, and one of his daughters, Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn. Their speeches were limited to the formal acceptance of birthday wishes from the country and a brief explanation about the king’s health.

There was hardly a hint of what the monarch thought about the prevailing political tensions in this carefully choreographed event at the Dusit Palace, the Bangkok residence of the king.

But this brief appearance of Vajiralongkorn to fill his father’s shoes was heavily symbolic in this country of 65 million people.

It was another sign of Thais having to get used to a new reign that will invariably follow. The 55-year-old prince has already taken on some ceremonial roles, such a presiding over the opening of a new session of parliament. In mid-November, he was also prominent in the public rituals during the elaborate funeral ceremony for the king’s sister.

Vajiralongkorn, however, has a moral mountain to ascend to reach the heights Bhumibol achieved since becoming the king in 1946. In the past six decades, Bhumbol succeeded in transforming the monarchy into the most important institution in this South-east Asian kingdom by winning his subjects’ hearts through royal projects to help the rural poor, unveiling new plans for irrigation and agriculture, and creating a rain-maker.

Thailand’s political rumblings and, at times, ‘’messy’’ democracy – where there have been 18 coups and where 24 governments have not completed their full terms, with the exception of one – has served as a story of contrast to the palace. The latter has come across as an oasis of calm, guided by the steadying hand of Bhumibol.

The world was offered a unique window into this feature of Thai politics in 1992, when Bhumibol, as the head of this constitutional monarchy, stepped in to restore peace following bloody clashes between a military dictator and the leader of a pro-democracy movement.

It was a similar role that Thais were hoping the king would play – through his speech on Dec. 4 – to ease current political tensions. For there are ample signs that the clashes between a right-wing, anti-government movement and supporters of the government that just collapsed after a superior court banned the ruling party on Tuesday are far from over.

The right-wing protesters, who mounted street demonstrations in early May and then went on to forcefully capture the prime minister’s office and, subsequently, five airports, crippled the just ousted People Power Party (PPP).

The recent siege of Bangkok’s international airport for a week, dealing a blow to the tourism, aviation, import and export sector, suddenly saw Thailand slide into the community of dysfunctional countries.

Others, too, added to this image of a country heading towards civil strife. The militia of the right-wing group, armed with guns, iron bars and wooden clubs, did such damage through its attacks on the pro-PPP sympathisers. In turn, the right-wing protesters were attacked, too, with bombs and grenades, resulting in a few deaths and leaving scores injured.

‘’At a time like this, when Thailand is so deeply divided, this speech would have been the most difficult one to make,’’ says Thitinan Pongsudhirak, political scientist at Bangkok’s Chulalongkorn University. ‘’Thais have always looked to the king to be a saviour.’’

‘’But maybe what happened on Thursday is an opportunity for the protagonists in this clash to solve the problems on their own,’’ he added in an interview. ‘’What they need to do is have acceptance and accommodation of each other’s demands.’’