THE THAI DRAMA lasted ostensibly less than a day. But the shock waves of the February 8 political earthquake triggered by Princess Ubolratana Rajakanya’s abortive prime ministerial candidacy – vetoed by her younger brother King Maha Vajiralongkorn within hours – are still being felt as the Thai public grapples with the meaning of that moment.
The motivation behind the monarch’s edict remains opaque, as do its consequences. Some say his decision was more a rebuke than a reminder, while others hint that he could be pulling the ruling junta’s strings – or stacking his deck against them.
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Never since the end of absolute monarchic rule in 1932 had members of the ruling Chakri dynasty fashioned themselves as politicians.
For good reason, too.
In the decades since that shift, politics in the kingdom had barrelled from stand-off to stand-off, with the military staging 19 coups, 12 of which were successful. Of the Southeast Asian country’s 29 prime ministers in that period, 12 had been from the military.
