A Thai princess is running to be prime minister of the country, in a move that would shock anyone who's ever bristled at the thought of, say, Prince Charles becoming Prime Minister of the UK, Prince Andrew of York taking up duties as Chancellor of the Exchequer or The Duke of Edinburgh presiding over the DVLA.
Anyone who’s been to Thailand, even if it was just for a full moon party, some pad Thai and the opportunity to meet a bunch of boys with bleach-blond hair, surf pants and the brazen audacity to repeatedly show you, in between rounds of fire poi on the beach, photos of them petting drugged tigers, will know how much the country’s citizens respect the royal family. Photos of them - royals, not drugged tigers - hang from taxi drivers’ rear view mirrors. Accidentally stepping on a 1000Baht note is the ultimate no-no as it means dishonoring the face of whichever royal appears on the tender. And from late 2016 to late 2017, the country united for 365 days of mourning for its deceased King Bhumibol Adulyadej.
So what happens when a member of the royal family, one Princess Ubolratana Rajakanya Sirivadhana Barnavadi, decides she wants to run for Prime Minister? The south-east Asian country is about to find out, as she’s done exactly that.
The 67-year-old, who gave away her royal titles in 1972, when she married Peter Ladd Jensen, a US citizen, said in a caption on an Instagram post: ‘I have relinquished my royal titles and lived as a commoner,’
‘I have accepted the Thai Raksa Chart party nomination for prime minister to show my rights and freedom without any privileges above other fellow Thai citizens under the constitution’, she added, reports The Guardian.
Ulboratana, as she’s known for short, pledged to lead the Thai Raksa Chart party, which is linked to the previous ruling party, whose leader, former PM Thaksin Shinawatra was thrown out in 2006 in a military coup. She’ll be going up against the leader of the current ruling party, Prayut Chan-o-cha, who has links to the military and the royal family.
Theoretically, if Thailand’s royal family allowed for absolute primogeniture (where the royal titles are handed down to the oldest child of the deceased monarch, regardless of that child’s sex) Princess Ulboratana would be the Queen of Thailand. But the monarchy in Thailand has a male-preference thing going on, so Princess Ubolratana’s younger brother, Maha Vajiralongkorn Bodindradebayavarangkun is the King of Thailand.
Though it’s illegal to criticise the monarchy, under strict lèse-majesté laws, it’s also imperative that, in a democracy, politicians can be freely scrutinised by the press. Luckily, for Ulboratana, though she's been reinstated with a royal title since her divorce from Jensen and her return to Thailand, those laws won't apply to her.