Thailand’s Queen Mother Sirikit dies at 93 after more than a decade out of the public eye | Thailand
Thailand’s Queen Mother Sirikit, who brought grandeur to the post-war revival of the country’s monarchy and would occasionally venture into politics in later years, has died at the age of 93, the Royal Dynasty office of Thailand announced.
The palace said he had been hospitalized since 2019 for various illnesses and contracted a bloodstream infection on October 17 and died late on Friday.
A year of mourning has been declared for the royal family and members of their households.
Thai prime minister Anutin Charnvirakul has canceled his trip to the Asean leaders’ summit in Malaysia due to the death of the Queen Mother, a government spokesman said on Saturday.
Sirikit had been out of the public eye since a stroke in 2012.
Her husband, King Bhumibol Adulyadej, was Thailand’s longest-reigning monarch, having reigned for 70 years since 1946.
For many people in Thailand, she will be remembered for her charitable work and as a symbol of maternal virtue. His death will be revered in a country where all criticism is kept at bay by strictly enforced majesty laws, which impose possible prison sentences for insulting royals, even dead ones.
Born in 1932, the year Thailand transitioned from an absolute monarchy to a constitutional monarchy, Sirikit Kitiyakara was the daughter of the Thai ambassador to France and lived a life of wealth and privilege.
While studying music and languages in Paris, he met Bhumibol, who had spent part of his childhood in Switzerland.
“It was like hate at first sight,” she said in a BBC documentary, noting that he arrived late for their first date. “It was love then.”
The couple spent time together in Paris and became engaged in 1949. They married a year later in Thailand, when he was 17.
Sirikit collaborated with French couturier Pierre Balmain on clothing made from Thai silk and is credited with helping revitalize the Thai silk industry by supporting the preservation of traditional weaving practices.
For over forty years he frequently traveled with the king to remote Thai villages, promoting development projects for the rural poor; The activities of these projects were published nightly in the country’s Royal Bulletin.
She briefly became regent in 1956 when her husband spent two weeks at a temple training to become a Buddhist monk in a rite of passage common in Thailand.
In 1976, her birthday, August 12, became Mother’s Day and a national holiday in Thailand.
His only son, current King Maha Vajiralongkorn (also known as Rama X), succeeded Bhumibol after his death in 2016, and following his coronation in 2019, Sirikit’s official title became Queen Mother.
In Thailand, whose modern history is dominated by coups and unstable governments, the monarchy is officially above politics. However, sometimes the royal family, including Sirikit, intervened or took actions that were seen as political.
In 1998, he used his birthday address to encourage Thais to unite behind then-prime minister Chuan Leekpai, dealing a major blow to the opposition’s plan to hold a no-confidence debate in the hope of holding a new election.
It was later associated with a political movement called the royalist People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD), whose protests overthrew governments led by or allied with Thaksin Shinawatra.
In 2008, Sirikit attended the funeral of a PAD protester killed in clashes with police; this implied royal support for a campaign that helped topple a pro-Thaksin government a year ago.
