Former Queen Sirikit Kitiyakorn, wife of Bhumibol Adulyadej, who ruled Thailand for 70 years and mother of the current monarch, has died at the age of 93, a change of era for the powerful Thai royals.
“His Majesty’s health deteriorated until Friday and he died” on Friday night “at Chulalongkorn Hospital” in Bangkok, the palace said in a statement, adding that King Vajiralongkorn had ordered all members of the royal family to observe a year of mourning.
Nicknamed the “Jackie Kennedy of Asia” in her youth, Sirikit formed with Bhumibol Adulyadej, who reigned under the name Rama IX, a glamorous and powerful couple that cemented the monarchy’s place at the heart of Thai society.
The death prompted the Thai prime minister to delay his departure on Saturday to attend the Asean summit in Malaysia, but he said he wanted to go there to sign a peace deal with Cambodia in the presence of US President Donald Trump.
“It is a huge loss for the nation,” Anutin Charnvirakul told reporters.
Popular emotion will undoubtedly be strong and a whole series of tributes are expected because in Thailand the king is widely considered the father of the nation and a symbol of the Buddhist ideal. The fervor generated by this semi-divine figure has few equivalents in the modern world.
“Mother figure”
The country celebrated a year of official mourning for Bhumibol, who died in October 2016 and was cremated a year later after a grand ceremony.
Since Saturday morning, the television news anchors were dressed in black, a sign that the time of mourning for Sirikit has also begun for the public.
Weakened by a stroke, she has not appeared in public for years, but it is not uncommon to find her gold-rimmed portrait in front of certain public buildings, inside stores or in private homes.
“I had heard that he was not well and, being over 90, I knew that day would come,” Sasis Putthasit, a 53-year-old domestic worker, responded early Saturday in Bangkok.
“I feel sad because she was a motherly figure for the country and now she is no longer here,” he added.
Sirikit’s birthday, August 12, marked Mother’s Day in Thailand.
Sirikit had four children from his union with Bhumibol, celebrated in 1950 when he was 17, including a single son, Maha Vajiralongkorn, who succeeded his father.
This aristocrat, daughter of a diplomat who was ambassador in Paris, grew up mainly in Europe, where she met her future husband, then a student in Switzerland.
STRUGGLE
In the 1960s, they gave the Thai monarchy an image of modernity: always dressed in the latest fashion, Sirikit particularly attended jazz concerts, of which Bhumibol was a fan, and posed for women’s magazines.
The couple also met Elvis Presley in 1960, during a tour of the United States.
However, after remaining highly respected since then, the royal faced a wave of protests in 2020 that mobilized tens of thousands of young people demanding political reforms on the streets. Among their demands was a reform of the monarchy and the very strict lese majeste law that protected it, with the consequence of very strong self-censorship.
In recent years, many Thais have been sentenced to long prison terms for defaming the king and his family.
Although the royal family is considered a figure that transcends ideological divisions and has always refrained from commenting, Sirikit attended the funeral in 2008 of a protester of the “yellow shirts”, these supporters of the king and the traditional order whose rivalry with the “red shirts” of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has long dominated Thai politics.
Even today, this division remains very present in Thailand, which has experienced a dozen successful coups since the establishment of the constitutional monarchy in 1932.
The palace has not yet confirmed the succession of the current king, who celebrated his 73rd birthday in July.
He has seven children, by three different women, but he has disowned four of his children.
He has a son, Dipangkorn Rasmijoti, 20, and two daughters, Sirivannavari Nariratana, 38, and Bajrakitiyabha Mahidol, 46, who remains hospitalized after a heart problem that caused her to lose consciousness in December 2022.
Source: BFM TV
