Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul cancels ASEAN, APEC trips after Queen Mother’s death
Thailand’s Queen Mother Sirikit, who brought glamor and elegance to the post-war monarchy’s revival and in later years occasionally dabbled in politics, has died at the age of 93, the Thai Royal Household Office announced Saturday.
Sirikit had been out of the public eye since suffering a stroke in 2012.
The palace said she had been hospitalized since 2019 due to several illnesses and developed a blood infection on October 17 before she died Friday evening.
A one-year mourning period has been declared for members of the royal family and royal household.
The government said public offices would fly flags at half-mast for a month and asked government officials to observe mourning for a year. Entertainment venues have been asked to suspend operations for a month.
Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul has canceled his visits to the ASEAN summit in Kuala Lumpur and the APEC summit in South Korea next week due to the death of the Queen Mother. He told reporters he would travel to Malaysia on Sunday to sign a ceasefire agreement with Cambodia, but would then return to Thailand.
Style icon that charmed the world
Sirikit’s husband, King Bhumibol Adulyadej, was Thailand’s longest-reigning monarch, with 70 years on the throne since 1946. She was by his side through much of that, winning the hearts of her country through her charitable work.
During their trips abroad, she also charmed the world’s media with her sense of beauty and fashion.
During a 1960 visit to the United States that included a state dinner at the White House, Time magazine called her “slender” and an “archfeminist.” The French daily L’Aurore called her “lovely.”
Born in 1932, the year Thailand transitioned from an absolute to a constitutional monarchy, Sirikit Kitiyakara was the daughter of the Thai ambassador to France and led a life of wealth and privilege.
While studying music and languages in Paris, she met Bhumibol, who had spent part of her childhood in Switzerland.
“It was hatred at first sight,” she said in a BBC documentary, noting that he arrived late for their first meeting. “So it was love.”
The couple spent time together in Paris and became engaged in 1949. They married in Thailand a year later, when she was 17.
Always elegant, Sirikit collaborated with French fashion designer Pierre Balmain on eye-catching outfits in Thai silk. By supporting the preservation of traditional weaving practices, she is credited with helping to revitalize Thailand’s silk industry.
Rural development defended
For more than four decades, she frequently traveled with the king to remote Thai villages, promoting development projects for the rural poor – their activities broadcast nightly by the country’s Royal Bulletin.
She was briefly regent in 1956, when her husband spent two weeks at a temple, studying to become a Buddhist monk in a common rite of passage in Thailand.
In 1976, her birthday, August 12, became Mother’s Day and a national holiday in Thailand.
Her only son, now King Maha Vajiralongkorn, also known as Rama
Officially, the monarchy is above politics in Thailand, whose modern history has been dominated by coups and unstable governments. However, there are times when members of the royal family, including Sirikit, have intervened or taken measures considered political.
In 1998, she used her birthday speech to urge Thais to unite behind then-Prime Minister Chuan Leekpai, dealing a crippling blow to the opposition’s plan to hold a no-confidence debate in the hope of forcing new elections.
She later joined forces with a political movement, the royalist People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD), whose protests brought down governments led by or allied to Thaksin Shinawatra, a populist former telecommunications tycoon.
In 2008, Sirikit attended the funeral of a PAD protester killed in clashes with police, implying royal support for a campaign that helped topple a pro-Thaksin government a year earlier.
For many Thais, she will be remembered for her charitable work and as a symbol of maternal virtue. His death will be treated with respect in a country where any criticism is kept at bay by strictly enforced lèse-majesté laws, which carry potential prison sentences for insulting members of the royal family, even those who have died.
On Saturday, mourners dressed in black gathered outside Chulalongkorn Hospital, where Sirikit had died.
“When I heard the news, my world stopped and I had flashes of the past of everything Her Majesty has done for us,” said Maneenat Laowalert, a 67-year-old Bangkok resident.
Sirikit is survived by his son, the king, as well as three daughters.
