Suddenly, several armed men grabbed him and forced him into a dark coloured Toyota Highlander which sped away.

Sitanun heard the commotion over the phone.

“I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe,” shouted Wanchalearm, who was known as “Tar” and was 37 years old.

For the next 30 minutes, Sitanun stayed on the call, hearing only muffled sounds. Then the line went dead.

Wanchalearm Satsaksit has never been seen or heard from again.

He was the tenth Thai dissident to vanish from Southeast Asian countries over the past five years. The bodies of two of them have been found. The rest remain missing and are assumed to have been murdered.

Wanchalearm was my friend. This is the story of what we know about what happened to him, and to the nine other Thai dissidents who have vanished abroad since 2016.

At the start of 2014, I went to live in Phnom Penh. I was working on my book A Kingdom in Crisis and wanted somewhere inexpensive to live in the region while I wrote it. We found a house on Street 21, also known by its old French name Rue Abdul Carime, with a small garden overflowing with trees hung with baskets of tumbling orchids, and a couple of big ceramic pots filled with water and dozens of tiny brilliantly coloured fish.

Rue Abdul Carime was where I finished my first book, and saw it published, and where my son Charlie took his first steps and began to talk. I loved it there and will never forget my time in Phnom Penh.

I’m a criminal in Thailand, but Phnom Penh was a safe haven back in those days, even though it’s a lawless place.

During his time as prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra had developed a rapport with Cambodian dictator Hun Sen, and they remained allies even after he was overthrown. Thai dissidents were able to live openly in Phnom Penh without fear of extradition.

I never revealed exactly where I lived, and our house was hidden behind high metal gates. For most of our time in Phnom Penh I never felt threatened or under surveillance. We knew all the tuktuk drivers who slept in their vehicles on the street outside, and they would have warned us if they saw anything sinister.

Among the most prominent Thai exiles in Phnom Penh was Jakrapob Penkair, a former cabinet minister who fled Thailand in 2009 after being charged with lèse majesté. He lived in a large compound on the outskirts of town, and was always a gracious host with many interesting stories to tell. Another dissident I got to know was film director Neti Wichiansaen, widely known on social media as Pruay Saltihead, who escaped Thailand in 2010 while also facing charges under Article 112.

On May 22, 2014, a military junta led by Prayut Chan-ocha and Prawit Wongsuwan seized power in Thailand, overthrowing the elected prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra in an illegal coup.

The junta began summoning Thai activists and dissidents for so-called “attitude adjustment” in military detention.

Wanchalearm was a democracy activist who worked for the youth wing of the Pheu Thai Party and secretly ran a highly popular Facebook page jokingly called “I will definitely get 100 million baht from Thaksin” which mocked the military and regularly published leaked information.

At the time of the coup, he was staying with the family of his girlfriend Prakaidao, daughter of veteran activist Somyot Pruksakasemsuk who was serving a long prison sentence for lèse majesté.

According to Prakaidao, the military somehow traced some of Wanchalearm’s online criticism of the coup to an IP address at the Pruksakasemsuk family home, and raided the house on May 25. Prakaidao and her mother Sukanya were arrested and detained for 24 hours at the Army Club.

Wanchalearm got away by jumping over a wall, and caught a flight from Don Muang to Kuala Lumpur later the same day. This was the start of his life in exile.

He made his way to Phnom Penh, and I first met him a couple of weeks after his escape.

Meanwhile, as the junta tightened its grip in the weeks and months after the coup, banning all dissent and detaining anybody who stood up for democracy, scores more activists and dissidents decided to flee Thailand. The only safe route to freedom was through Cambodia.

Laos was a dangerous dead end — the oppressive Lao regime barely tolerated Thais escaping the junta, and once there it was almost impossible to get to a safe third country. Going through Myanmar was equally difficult — the Thai junta had longstanding links with the Burmese military.

Cambodia was the only realistic way out. The border between Thailand and Cambodia is extremely porous — it’s easy to cross between the two countries informally at countless remote spots, and if you don’t want to have to trek through the wilderness, many of the vast casinos at border towns like Poipet actually straddle the frontier and are happy to facilitate people moving illegally between the two countries, to enable high-rolling Thai gamblers to bring their winnings back without official scrutiny. It’s also fairly easy to move informally between the two countries by sea.

Several well-known dissidents including Somsak Jeamteerasakul and Suda Rangkupan escaped to Cambodia during this period. Some European countries — above all, France — were willing to issue laissez passer documents to Thai activists so they could fly to Europe and claim political asylum even after the junta had cancelled their passports.

Phnom Penh became a magnet for Thai exiles. Thai journalist Nanchanok Wongsamuth wrote a good story on the Phnom Penh exile community in June 2014, and the New York Times also reported on the exodus to Cambodia.

I saw Wanchalearm often during 2014. He was great company — smart, funny, brave and kind, with a big smile, always ready to help others. I never heard him say anything mean or cruel, even about the junta. He didn’t hate anybody. He just wanted to help Thais get democracy and equal rights for all.

Sometimes he would disappear for a few days, telling me he had to go to the Thai border, or to Sihanoukville to meet an incoming boat, and gradually I realised that once he had reached Phnom Penh, Wanchalearm had soon become one of the key people running the underground railroad that helped other Thais escape to safety in Cambodia.

The underground network was funded by Thaksin, and facilitated by a powerful Cambodian godfather known as Huad who controlled large swathes of the border regions and was fluent in both Thai and Khmer. It was tacitly approved by Hun Sen, and it involved officials at all levels of the Cambodian government.

Dissidents who crossed into Cambodia illegally were able to get entry stamps in their passports to make it look as if they had arrived legitimately, and even if their passports had been cancelled they were allowed to fly out of Pochentong Airport to safety in Europe, the US, Australia or New Zealand.

There were broadly two types of people using the network to flee Thailand. The first group was the political dissidents — people like Somsak and Suda.

The second group was people who had committed violent attacks against the far-right PDRC protest movement. Thaksin had (stupidly and unforgivably) sought to undermine the PDRC by making it known that if people used violence against them, they would be paid and protected. This was the reason for the gun, bomb and grenade attacks on PDRC rallies in 2013 and 2014.

All of the attacks were relatively small-scale, but several people were killed and dozens wounded during this period. Thaksin kept his word and the perpetrators were helped to flee to Cambodia.

Most of those who escaped Thailand were accommodated at apartment buildings in the east of Phnom Penh owned by the Khmer border gangster Huad and his associates, including Mekong Gardens.

The Chroy Changva district where the apartment buildings were located is across the Tonle Sap River from downtown Phnom Penh so it was a relatively inconspicuous location.

The initial safe house for arriving exiles was a large brothel owned by Huad, the multi-storey Washington Hotel, about five minutes walk from Mekong Gardens. It had a fishbowl full of women in underwear on the second floor and was popular with Asian tourists and rich Cambodians. It was a good hiding place for people who didn’t want to be found.

The dissidents who had been fighting for democracy and the paid perpetrators of violent attacks had little in common, and indeed tended to profoundly disagree about the methods used to advance their goals.

The network running the underground railroad did their best to keep the two groups separate, in different apartment buildings, but there were a lot of arguments and tensions. Managing the situation was not an easy task.

Wanchalearm didn’t believe in violence, but he did his best to help everybody who was escaping Thailand, and didn’t judge them. He just tried to get them to safety.

Towards the end of 2014, a friend of mine suddenly found himself facing an extremely dangerous situation in Thailand, and had to escape the country. I put him in contact with Wanchalearm, who was able to get him safely to Cambodia, and then onwards to claim asylum in Europe. I can’t tell the full story of this episode yet, because my friend is not ready to talk about it publicly, but all I can say is that Wanchalearm was there when we needed him, and went out of his way to help people in danger.

Soon afterwards, I left Cambodia. It was starting to feel unsafe for my family, particularly after the recent events I had been involved with. The generals in the Thai junta were working hard to ingratiate themselves with Hun Sen, and it seemed like Thaksin was probably decisively defeated. The ever pragmatic Cambodian dictator decided it made more sense to work with the Thai regime rather than defy it.

Phnom Penh had become infested with Thai agents and spies, keeping an eye on the dissident community. A few times, when meeting Thai friends in restaurants and bars, groups of men with short haircuts would be sitting nearby, watching us intently.

It was time to go. At the end of 2014, we left our house in Phnom Penh and moved to Scotland.

All of the exiles knew that things were becoming more dangerous for Thai dissidents in Southeast Asia, but none of us realised how bad it was going to get.

The first warning signs were in Laos. A few decades ago, Laos was regarded as a hostile state to Thailand and a vassal of Vietnam, but in the 21st century political alignments in Southeast Asia have changed. China’s influence is becoming dominant everywhere, and old regional enmities are fading away, replaced by mutual support among authoritarian regimes to assist each other’s efforts to crush dissent.

Meanwhile, as King Bhumibol’s health worsened dramatically in 2016 he became unable to exert any more influence to control his son Vajiralongkorn. The junta acquiesced to whatever Vajiralongkorn demanded, and the crown prince and his henchmen decided to start murdering dissidents based abroad to try to strike fear into opponents of the monarchy.

Some of those who fled to Laos after the 2014 coup, including Somsak Jeamteerasakul, realised it was a hostile environment and managed to get to Cambodia where they were safer. But others got stuck in Laos, including Ittipon Sukpaen, known as DJ Sunho, a Red Shirt activist from Chiang Mai.

Sometime in late June 2016, Ittipon was seized by black-clad men in Laos. His trainers and motorbike were found near his home. Credible information suggested he’d been abducted by Thai soldiers and taken across the border to detention at the 36th Army Circle base in Phetchabun, but after that the trail went cold. He has never been heard from again.

In July 2017, 10 armed men dressed in black, wearing balaclavas, and speaking Thai, seized dissident Wuthipong Kachathamakul, also known as Ko Tee, at his house in Vientiane where he had been living in exile.

Ko Tee, his wife, and a friend who was also in the house were beaten, shocked with electric stun guns, blindfolded and had their hands tied with plastic handcuffs. The armed men drove Ko Tee away in a car, leaving his wife and friend at the house.

Ko Tee was a former DJ at Red Guard Radio in Pathum Thani who became the leader of a hardcore Red Shirt faction that fought several violent battles against royalist protesters. He fled Thailand after he was accused of lèse majesté over comments made in a VICE News documentary in 2014.

According to a military source with direct knowledge of the operation, the men who kidnapped him were Thai special forces soldiers. They drove him to a remote area of forest where they tortured him, murdered him, urinated on his corpse, and buried him.

The next person to disappear was a rising star in the Thai military.

Chaloemsak Ruenmongkon was a sub-lieutenant in the elite “red beret” special forces based in Lopburi, regarded as one of the best and brightest of his generation. He was personally mentored by commander-in-chief Chalermchai Sitthisart. He was in a special battalion of the 3rd Special Forces Regiment, which is designated as part of the King's Guard. His unit focused on special warfare and black ops.

Chaloemsak had concluded the Thai monarchy was toxic, and was building a network of progressive young officers who wanted democracy.

On March 30, 2018, while he was in Narathiwat, Chaloemsak was summoned back to Bangkok because he was suspected of being behind the anti-monarchy and anti-junta Facebook page “พิซซ่าชาวใน”. He contacted Chalermchai, asking for reassurances about his safety, but Chalermchai said the case was so serious he could offer no help or protection.

On March 31, Chaloemsak was interrogated in Bangkok by a colonel working in military intelligence. On April 1, he was told by an aide de camp that the findings of the investigation had been sent to King Vajiralongkorn's team in Germany. He was told Vajiralongkorn was personally aware of his case, and that he faced severe punishment. So he decided to try to escape.

Chaloemsak flew to Phnom Penh, where he planned to seek protection from the UNHCR. But they refused to help him. While in Cambodia he discovered his Thai bank accounts had already been shut down. He knew Cambodia was not safe, so he flew to Manila in the Philippines, where he arrived on April 6, 2018.

Meanwhile, the Thai authorities cancelled his civilian and military passports. Here are the documents, which were leaked to me by Thai sources.

Chaloemsak checked in to a backpacker hostel in Manila, and planned to visit the UNHCR when it reopened after the weekend. He made contact with the UNHCR office and received a response.

But Chaloemsak Ruenmongkon never arrived at the UNHCR offices in Manila, and his family and friends have never heard from him again.

Trusted sources have told me that Chaloemsak was captured in Malaysia, taken back to Thailand, and then disappeared. I have no explanation for how he ended up in Malaysia after he was so close to safety in Manila, but during his escape he remained convinced that his comrades in the Thai special forces would help him. It’s probable that he was betrayed by a friend who asked him to come to the Thai-Malaysian border, where Thai special forces are active, and then handed him over to the regime.

Next, more dissidents went missing from Laos, and this time the team sent to murder them bungled the disposal of their bodies.

In December 2018, Surachai Danwattananusorn and his comrades Chatchan “Phoo Chana” Boonphawal and Kraidej “Kasalong” Luelert vanished from their house in Vientiane.

Surachai was a veteran activist who was sentenced to death after the Thammasat University massacre in 1976 due to his membership of the communist movement, but was pardoned in 1988. In 2012 he was sentenced to seven and a half years in prison for lèse majesté, and he was released in October 2013 after another royal pardon.

Following the 2014 coup, he escaped to Laos with Chatchan and Kraidej. The three men were last seen alive on December 11, 2018. Friends who visited after that date found their house deserted.

Later that month, on December 26, 27 and 29, three corpses washed up on the banks of the Thai side of the Mekong River. The bodies were wrapped in rice sacks and fish nets, tied with rope. One of the corpses disappeared after police and a naval patrol boat arrived at the scene. The two other bodies were sent to the Forensic Science Institute in Bangkok and identified as Chatchan and Kraidej.

Their legs had been broken, probably as a result of torture, they were handcuffed, and they had been disembowelled and stuffed with concrete.

Meanwhile, the Thai regime was demonstrating its willingness to deny a safe haven to people fleeing authoritarian countries elsewhere, to help build reciprocal arrangements that would help them hunt down Thai dissidents abroad.

The most notorious case was the forcible deportation of 109 male Uyghur refugees in July 2015 to Chinese security officers who had arrived in Bangkok on a special chartered flight. The Chinese treated the Uyghurs like violent terrorists, restraining their hands behind their backs, placing black hoods over their heads, and affixing a piece of paper numbering each refugee with bright red numerals to the front of their t-shirts.

Two Chinese security agents in matching blue uniforms and caps and white face masks were assigned to each detainee. They dragged them, hooded and restrained, back onto the China Southern Airlines charter plane, and sat on either side of each prisoner for the flight.

Chinese television broadcast images of the extraordinary scenes of extraterritorial human rights violations taking place on Thai soil. The fate of the deported men is unknown, but China’s appalling human rights record in Xinjiang has been widely reported.

The mass deportation led directly to the bombing of the Erawan Shrine on August 17, 2015. A pipe bomb containing three kilograms of TNT and hidden in a backpack left under a bench killed 20 people and wounded 163, with most of the casualties foreign tourists who were visiting the shrine.

Meanwhile, the Thai regime was also sending back dissidents from Cambodia, to try to build a relationship with Hun Sen that would allow them to target the exiled Thai activists in Phnom Penh.

During 2018, two Cambodian activists who had traveled to Thailand to seek refugee status were forcibly repatriated. Labour rights activist Sam Sokha, who faced prosecution in Cambodia for throwing a shoe at a billboard of dictator Hun Sen during a protest, was detained in a Thai immigration facility in January 2018 and jailed in Cambodia in February after being deported.

Rath Rott Mony, a trade union leader and translator, was arrested in Thailand in December 2018 after a request from Cambodia which accused him of damaging the country’s image by working on a documentary on child prostitution. He was refused refugee status and sent back to Phnom Penh where he was jailed for two years.

In January 2019, Vietnamese journalist Truong Duy Nhat traveled to Thailand to seek political asylum in a third country. He visited the offices of the UNHCR on January 25 to apply for refugee status. The following day, he was seized by unknown men outside an ice cream store at the Future Park mall in Rangsit. He resurfaced two days later, in prison in Hanoi, and was subsequently sentenced to 10 years in jail. He told his lawyer that he had been arrested by Thai police and handed over to Vietnamese security agents who took him back overland to Hanoi via Laos.

By now it was clear that an “unholy alliance” of authoritarian Southeast Asian regimes was cooperating to hunt down dissidents seeking sanctuary and send them home — or worse, to turn a blind eye to their extraterritorial murder.

In May 2019, three more Thai dissidents disappeared — Chucheep Chiwasut and his comrades Siam Theerawut and Kritsana Thapthai.

They were leading members of a movement called the Organization for a Thai Federation, which advocated giving self-governance to the Isaan region of northeast Thailand, and had a logo with the red and white colours of the Thai flag but missing the blue, which symbolises the monarchy. Chucheep gained a wide following with regular YouTube videos in which he criticised the royals, using the pseudonym Uncle Sanam Luang.

The three men were arrested while trying to cross from Laos to Vietnam using fake Indonesian passports, but then vanished, with both Thailand and Vietnam claiming not to know anything about their whereabouts. They are also presumed dead.

Siam Theerawut’s mother Kanya continues to demand answers about what happened to her son, but she has never been given any information.

The case is particularly incriminating for the Thai regime because we know the three men were in Vietnamese custody and handed over to the Thais, even though deputy prime minister Prawit Wongsuwan has tried to deny this.

Vajiralongkorn’s efforts to crush dissent through fear, by oppressing dissidents in Thailand and ordering their kidnap and murder abroad, only made him even more unpopular and hated.

After the Constitutional Court — acting on direct orders from the palace — dissolved the progressive Future Forward Party in February 2020 and banned its leader Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit and other party executives from politics for 10 years, there was unprecedented criticism of the monarchy on social media, and “flash mob” protests were held at universities and schools across the kingdom.

Vajiralongkorn, who was living at the luxury Grand Hotel Sonnenbichl in Germany with a large harem of women, became increasingly enraged by the protests and escalating mockery of the monarchy.

He was incensed that palace insiders were leaking information to me about his lifestyle in Bavaria, and by the widespread disrespect towards him on social media. After Somsak Jeamteerasakul published a tweet in March 2020 with the hashtag #กษัตริย์มีไว้ทําไม — #WhyDoWeNeedAKing? — criticism of Vajiralongkorn went viral with more than 1.2 million tweets within 24 hours.

In May 2020, exiled dissident Junya Yimprasert launched a series of protests right outside Vajiralongkorn’s hotel in Bavaria, working with the German activist group PixelHELPER. Messages denouncing Vajiralongkorn and the military regime, and a notorious photograph of the king wearing a crop top, were projected onto the facade of the Grand Hotel Sonnenbichl.

Inside the hotel, according to one palace source, Vajiralongkorn’s anger “exploded like a bomb” at the audacity of protesters daring to denounce him right outside his Bavarian hideaway. Another source in the royal entourage says the king wanted to send his bodyguards out to assault the protesters, but was dissuaded by some of his more sensible advisers. Thai security guards drove out of the hotel twice in large black vehicles to intimidate the activists, but did not physically intervene.

Later in May, Vajiralongkorn’s fury deepened after the Facebook group Royalist Marketplace launched by exiled academic Pavin Chachavalpongpun quickly attracted hundreds of thousands of participants openly ridiculing the royal family.

Seething with rage, Vajiralongkorn decided the best way to respond was by murdering another exiled activist, believing this would terrify his opponents into giving up their struggle.

He ordered his security chief Jakrapob Bhuridej to find somebody to kill.

Jakrapob is the most brutal and feared member of Vajiralongkorn’s inner circle, responsible for overseeing the torture and beatings of palace staff who displease the king, as well as operations against democracy activists in Thailand and abroad. His family has become extremely influential thanks to Vajiralongkorn’s patronage, and his brother Jirabhop is chief of the Crime Suppression Division of the Royal Thai Police.

Thai embassies were told to try find out the home addresses of exiled dissidents, and Jakrapob's team began hunting for a target.

The Thai regime has been doing its best to monitor foreign-based critics for years, as a document leaked to me in 2017 shows. Wanchalearm is on the lower left of the document, and I am one of those on the top row.

But finding a Thai activist to kill was much harder by 2020 because almost everybody had left Cambodia and Laos, realising that they were not safe there.

During 2019, members of the activist folk band Faiyen, who had been stranded in Laos, managed to escape to seek asylum in France. As lead singer Romchalee “Yammy” Sombulrattanakul told AFP:

All the firebrand activists have gone, disappeared. We are the last targets.

After it had become clear that Cambodia was no longer a safe haven, most Thai activists who had sought sanctuary there also found a way out.

But Wanchalearm stayed. He knew Cambodia was getting much more dangerous, but he liked living there and was full of plans about businesses he could launch — every time I talked to him, he had a new idea for a project.

He had managed to get a Cambodian passport under the alias Sok Heng, was able to visit other countries several times, and could have successfully sought asylum somewhere safer, but he wanted to stay in Phnom Penh.

He had never been a vocal critic of the monarchy. His Facebook paged focused mainly on mocking the military regime rather than the royals. He wasn’t doing anything to openly provoke or challenge the palace.

But when Vajiralongkorn demanded another murder, his henchmen chose Wanchalearm as their victim because he was one of the few prominent exiled Thai dissidents still living in mainland Southeast Asia. He was the easiest target.

Most of the leading critics of the monarchy had been granted political asylum in countries with strong rule of law — Somsak in France, Pavin in Japan and Junya in Finland. Arranging a murder in one of these nations would be extremely difficult and politically dangerous. But killing somebody in Cambodia is easy to organise, and the palace knew that Hun Sen would turn a blind eye.

They also knew that killing Wanchalearm would send a message to all exiled Thai activists, because almost everybody knew him — and had been helped by him in their escape from Thailand.

On the evening of June 1, 2020, Thai Airways flight TG933 took off from Paris, heading for Bangkok. It was an unusual flight, because the struggling airline had cancelled almost all international routes two months earlier as a result of the pandemic, and TG933 was not one of the sporadic repatriation airlifts organised for Thais stranded abroad.

Officially it was a cargo flight, but the plane used, a Boeing 777 with registration HS-TKY, was not one of the airline’s usual cargo aircraft. It was the favourite Thai Airways plane of Vajiralongkorn and his top aides, usually used by them when they travelled between Europe and Thailand.

The flight manifest shows that four passengers were aboard — Jakrapob Bhuridej and three of his team. They landed at Suvarnabhumi early in the afternoon of June 2.

It was extremely rare for Jakrapob to leave Vajiralongkorn’s side, but he was going back to Bangkok for an important mission — overseeing the operation to kidnap and kill Wanchalearm.

Vajiralongkorn remained in Europe. On June 2 he flew from Munich to Zurich aboard one of his personal Boeing 737s, to visit his wife Queen Suthida.

Vajiralongkorn rarely spends time with Suthida when in Europe, preferring to live with his chief consort Sineenat “Koi” Wongvajirabhakdi and his harem at the Grand Hotel Sonnenbichl, while the queen lives a lonely life at Hotel Waldegg in the Swiss resort of Engelberg. But June 3 was Suthida’s 42nd birthday, which is probably why the king decided to go and see her.

On June 4, Wanchalearm was seized outside his apartment, in broad daylight. CCTV footage shows two security guards from the Mekong Gardens complex witnessing the abduction, and then the Toyota Highlander speeding off.

It’s likely that Wanchalearm was driven to a remote spot in Cambodia, tortured, and killed the same day. Notoriously, Vajiralongkorn enjoys watching video of his enemies being beaten and tormented, so Wanchalearm’s ordeal was probably filmed by the team that killed him, so the king could view it afterwards.

The authorities in Cambodia have never even bothered to pretend to investigate the incident. They continue to absurdly claim that they have not found any evidence a crime has been committed or that Wanchalearm was even in Cambodia.

Thai authorities say they have no jurisdiction and have also feigned complete ignorance about the case.

As Sunai Pasuk of Human Rights Watch says, the abduction and murder of Wanchalearm and other activists abroad was designed to create a climate of terror in which nobody dares speak out:

They want to maintain this ultimate fear that once you get in the way, the worst thing can happen to you and your family—that is, you are taken away for good, and no one knows if you still exist on this earth or not, then your family will suffer for the rest of their lives and beyond because they don’t know what happened to you.

He says the killings on foreign soil were also intended to send the message that: “No matter where you go, you can still be hunted down.”

But the murder of Wanchalearm Satsaksit was a disastrous strategic blunder by the Vajiralongkorn and his cronies. They thought it would put an end to mounting defiance of the monarchy. Instead, it poured fuel on the flames.

There was uproar in Thailand. #saveวันเฉลิม quickly became the top hashtag on Thai Twitter with more than half a million tweets after the kidnapping, and #ยกเลิก112 soon started trending too — a call to scrap the archaic lèse majesté law used by the palace for decades to try to stifle dissent.

Posters and street art with Wanchalearm’s face appeared all over Bangkok and beyond. The Student Union of Thailand organised a flash mob protest at the skywalk beside the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre the day after Wanchaleram’s abduction. Police tried to disperse the crowd, citing the need for social distancing during the pandemic, but the protesters refused to be intimidated.

Three days later dozens of people led by Somyot Prueksakasemsuk gathered outside the Cambodian embassy in Bangkok, demanding answers.

Rangsiman Rome, a democracy activist who had joined Thanathorn’s Future Forward movement and become an MP, raised the issue in parliament.

Reuters reported that Wanchalearm’s disappearance had “reignited protests against Thailand’s military-royalist elite”.

It galvanised and radicalised the democracy movement, and dragged the reputation of the Thai monarchy to its lowest point in history.

It was the moment when many younger Thais decided enough was enough, and became determined to confront the palace head on.

The killing was one of the main triggers for the extraordinary mass protests that shook the Thai regime in the second half of 2020, at which activists openly demanded fundamental reform of the monarchy.

Wanchalearm’s sister Sitanun, who he was talking to on the phone when he was abducted, has been campaigning tirelessly to demand the truth about what happened from the Thai and Cambodian authorities. Last November she flew to Phnom Penh with a legal team and presented a large dossier of evidence to a Cambodian judge.

She is determined to keep going:

I don’t have a future anymore, but if I don’t fight, if I don’t do this, let me ask you — who is going to do it? Because no one can tell our story as well as us, and no one can tell our story every day.

But Wanchalearm’s family and friends know that there is no prospect we will ever see him again. We know he is never coming back.

All we can do is try our best to find out the full story of what happened to Tar and the rest of Thailand’s disappeared, so that someday their killers may face consequences for what they have done.

Just before one o’clock in the afternoon local time on Thursday, June 15, 1972, as lunch was being served to passengers at a cruising altitude of 29,000 feet over the jungled mountains of central Vietnam, Cathay Pacific flight CX700Z tumbled out of the sky.

The 11-year-old Convair 880 jet airliner, registration VR-HFZ, with 71 passengers and 10 crew aboard, began to break apart as it plunged five miles to earth, splitting into three sections — the cockpit, the central fuselage with wings attached, and the rear and tail behind the wings. The back section of the aircraft turned vertical as it fell.

Passengers who had been standing in the aisle, or queuing for the toilet, and flight attendants and pursers who were serving lunch, were sucked out of the disintegrating plane.

It took two and a half minutes to hit the ground.

The wreckage smashed onto a remote hilltop 40 km southeast of the city of Pleiku. The engines in the central section, where most of the passengers were still strapped into their seats, exploded on impact.

The rear section of the plane was impaled on a tree. Thirteen passengers and two crew were still inside. The force of the impact concertinaed the rear fuselage into a mangled stump of compressed metal and flesh just six feet long.

The cockpit crashed a short distance away and was crushed and flattened too, with unrecognisable human remains pancaked inside.

Flight CX700Z had taken off from Don Muang International Airport in Bangkok five minutes before midday. It had originally departed from Singapore earlier that morning, with a stopover in Thailand en route to the British colony of Hong Kong.

Because Vietnam was riven by war, commercial jetliners avoided flying over the north of the country, and so CX700Z had headed eastwards from Bangkok on the Green 77 flight route, which passed over Vietnam’s central highlands near Pleiku before swinging northeast over the South China Sea.

One hour, four minutes and two seconds after departure from Bangkok the plane vanished from the radar screens of Saigon air traffic control.

Shortly before dusk, a US army reconnaissance flight sighted the wreckage.

As news of the catastrophe began spreading, Cathay Pacific’s office in Hong Kong sent an urgent cable to its parent company Swire Group in London.

Managers assumed that flight CX700Z must have collided with another aircraft — perhaps a US military plane — over central Vietnam:

MUCH REGRET ADVISE CV880 REGISTRATION VR-HFZ INVOLVED MIDAIR COLLISION ABOUT 0600 RPT 0600 WEST OF QUINON SOUTH VIETNAM WHILE ENROUTE FROM BANGKOK TODAY UNDER COMMAND CAPTAIN NEIL MORISON. TOTAL 81 PASSENGERS CREW ON BOARD.

But there was no confirmation that the disaster had been caused by a midair collision. Reuters initially quoted a US military spokesman as saying that the CX700Z had hit another unidentified aircraft over the central highlands, and AFP reported that the flight had crashed into a Taiwanese C-46 transport plane, but it soon became clear that no other aircraft were missing. Media began speculating instead that a lightning strike had brought down the airliner.

Because the plane had gone down in a war zone, South Vietnamese troops were drafted in to establish a secure cordon around the area and drive away encroaching Viet Cong forces with artillery strikes, while the US military airlifted a Cathay Pacific investigation team to the site, led by the airline’s operations manager Bernie Smith.

They arrived the day after the disaster. There was severe danger to the rescue and investigation teams, and one of the two South Vietnamese military helicopters sent to surveil the crash site was shot down within hours. Some of the crash debris was looted by local villagers before the site was secured.

Early media reports had suggested there could be some people still alive after the crash. But after visiting the scene, Smith telegraphed Swire Group from Saigon:

RETURNED FROM CRASH SITE DEFINITELY NIL REPEAT NIL SURVIVORS

II. FIRM EVIDENCE OF AN EXPLOSION

The corpse of Dicky Kong, Second Purser on CX700Z, was lying spreadeagled a few meters from the shattered nose of the plane. His face was swollen but his uniform and body seemed intact. Nearby was the crumpled corpse of an Irish priest, Father Patrick Cunningham, dressed in his cassock and clerical collar. Around them, wreckage and dozens of bodies were strewn across the forested hilltop.

The captain of the flight was Australian pilot Neil Morison, a friend of Adrian Swire whose family conglomerate owned the airline. The plane was being piloted by First Officer Lachlan Mackenzie, and also in the cockpit were First Officer Leslie Boyer and Flight Engineer Ken Hickey. There were six Hong Kong cabin crew — two pursers, William Yuen and Dicky Kong, and four flight attendants, Winnie Chan, Ellen Cheng, Tammy Li and Florence Ng.

Morison’s corpse was eventually recovered from the crushed cockpit, identifiable only because his remains were still partially held together by his uniform. The bodies of Boyer and Hickey were identified in the Saigon morgue where the dead were taken. No trace of Lachlan Mackenzie was ever found.

Most of the passengers were Japanese, Thai and American, including several families. Seven members of one US family surnamed Kenny were aboard, as were eight members of a Filipino family on their way to Manila— civil servant Norberto Fernandez, his wife, their five children, and his niece.

As the team sent by Cathay Pacific recovered evidence from the scene, two British air accident experts, Vernon Clancy and Eric Newton, were flown to Vietnam to examine the remnants of the plane.

Painstakingly, they reconstructed the final minutes of flight CX700Z.

Examining the central fuselage of the stricken aircraft, they found overwhelming evidence that a blast had punched a hole in the plane beside seat 10F, over the wing. At least one passenger, and one or two seats, were sucked out of the gap and smashed into the tail, breaking off the rear right-hand stabiliser.

The explosion also punctured and ignited the plane’s right-hand fuel tank, setting part of the fuselage ablaze. With one of its rear stabilisers destroyed, the aircraft pitched upwards, yawed to the right, and turned upside down.

The blast severed the mechanisms beneath the cabin floor that enabled the pilots to control the plane. They were helpless to stop the unfolding disaster.

The fact that the corpses of cabin crew were still dressed in their clothing for serving food, and that several passengers had been apparently standing in the aisle when the plane disintegrated, suggested the disaster had happened without warning.

There was no evidence of panic or foreknowledge that a catastrophe was unfolding. They had been cruising safely over Vietnam, with no indication anything was wrong, and then suddenly they were hurtling downwards in a crippled aircraft that was breaking apart.

In his confidential report to the Vietnamese Director of Civil Aviation in Saigon, veteran British investigator Vernon Clancy wrote:

There is firm evidence of an explosion of a substantial quantity of high explosive within the aircraft, probably within the cabin in way of the wing roots.

Cathay Pacific CX700Z had not been destroyed by a mid-air collision. It had not been hit by a bolt of lightning. It had been blown out of the sky by a bomb.

III. FOR YOUR INFORMATION THERE IS ONE MAJOR SUSPECT

Investigators established that the bomb that brought down CX700Z had exploded between rows nine and ten on the right side of the plane — which meant it must have been stowed in front of seat 10E or 10F.

These seats had been occupied by two Thais — a seven-year-old girl called Sonthaya Chaiyasut, and a 20-year-old woman called Somwang Prompin, a hostess who worked at an all-night bar, the 24-Hour Café in Siam Square. The two had been travelling together, and had boarded the plane in Bangkok.

Sonthaya was the daughter of Lieutenant Somchai Chaiyasut of the Thai Police Aviation Division and his Filipina ex-wife Alice Villiagus. Somwang was the 29-year-old Somchai’s latest girlfriend.

Somchai, who was based at Don Muang, had behaved strangely on the day of the crash. He had accompanied his girlfriend and daughter to the Cathay Pacific check-in counter at the airport, wearing his full police uniform, and demanded that they were given seats 10E and 10F, over the plane’s right wing. When told that these seats had already been allocated to other passengers, and that Sonthaya and Somwang had been given seats 15E and 15F, he tried to insist their seats be changed.

Eventually he convinced the Cathay Pacific superintendent at Don Muang to board the plane and persuade a Japanese passenger to switch seats so that Sonthaya and Somwang could have 10E and 10F. Somchai claimed his girlfriend and daughter wanted the seats to have a good view — even though the view from 15E and 15F was much better because it wasn’t obscured by the wing.

Sonthaya and Somwang did not check in any luggage for the flight. Somwang carried just one piece of hand luggage — a cosmetics case — which she took onto the plane and stowed under the seat in front of her.

In the frantic, traumatic aftermath of the crash, Cathay Pacific flew bereaved relatives to Saigon to help identify the bodies that had been recovered. Lieutenant Somchai was among them.

Cathay Pacific officials were unsettled by his behaviour in Saigon — he showed little interest in finding their remains, but was insistent that he wanted Somwang’s cosmetics case returned to him. Instead of showing grief over the deaths of his girlfriend and daughter, he badgered officials with the same insistent question — did they know what had caused the crash? His behaviour was strikingly different from the other bereaved relatives. It was widely noticed by the Cathay officials who dealt with him in Saigon.

In any case, the body of his daughter, seven-year-old Sonthaya Chaiyasut, was never found. Investigators concluded that she had been in the window seat, 10F, and had been sucked out of the plane along with her seat when the bomb detonated. It was her body, and the seat she was strapped into, that smashed into the jetliner’s rear stabiliser and caused the plane’s catastrophic loss of control.

Somwang’s body was recovered, however, and was identified thanks to the work of Wesley Neep, a former chief of the US Army Mortuary in Saigon. Her legs had been blown off below the knee and her face and hands were also missing — suggesting the bomb may have been in the cosmetics box she had stowed under the seat in front of her, and perhaps detonated as she was bending forward to open it.

Cathay Pacific officials soon learned further disturbing information. Somchai had bought travel accident coverage for Somwang and Sonthaya from American International Insurance and New Zealand Insurance. In the event of their deaths, he stood to get 3.1 million baht — worth around $225,000 at the time.

“For your information there is one major suspect who is a lieutenant in the Thai police and who is at present in Saigon with some of the other next-of-kin,” wrote Cathay Pacific chairman Duncan Bluck in a letter to Swire Group in London. “He is alleged to have insured his common law wife and daughter for a large sum. It is known that they had no hold baggage, and only one suitcase which was placed under the seat specifically requested by him for his common law wife.”

IV. ONE OF THE WORST MASS MURDERERS IN HISTORY

Little progress was being made in the official Thai investigation, and news reports suggested the regime was deliberately dragging its feet.

So Cathay Pacific ordered their chief security officer, former colonial policeman Geoffrey Binstead, to investigate further in Bangkok. Thai police were generally unhelpful but Binstead began informally sharing information with Colonel Term Snidvongs of the Crime Supression Division, a Thai aristocrat who was also a keen aviator, and who also wanted to discover what had happened.

In Siam Square, Binstead spoke to two of Somwang’s friends, nicknamed Tommy and Dang, at the 24-Hour Café.

“They are hostesses whose company can be hired,” he wrote in an investigation report. The women told him that Somchai had frequently visited the 24-Hour Café, and that Somwang had moved in with him about six weeks before the crash.

Somchai had quickly proposed marriage, and asked her to fly to Hong Kong with his daughter Sonthaya. He said they would be met by his mother, who would give her $500 for shopping, and he would join them in a few days.

Binstead also learned that it was not the first time that Somchai had tried to persuade a Thai woman to take his daughter on an international flight. He tracked down a hostess called Sathinee Somphitak who worked at the Café de Paris, a restaurant and bar in Patpong. She told him Somchai had offered her 30,000 baht to accompany Sonthaya on a shopping trip to Hong Kong.

She initially agreed, but became suspicious and asked him for an advance of 5,000 to test his sincerity. When he refused, she backed out of the plan. It was a decision that saved her life.

On August 31, 1972, Lieutenant Somchai Chaiyasut was arrested at the police aviation centre at Don Muang, stripped of his rank, and charged with premeditated mass murder and sabotage.

He insisted he was innocent, despite the overwhelming evidence against him.

Somchai’s trial began on May 11, 1973. At his first appearance before the panel of three Criminal Court judges who would decide his fate, he pleaded not guilty.

“The neatly-dressed defendant, who stands accused of a crime which could make him one of the worst mass murderers in history, looked nervous and ill-tempered,” reported the Bangkok Post. “But he appeared to get a grip on himself after getting his shoulder patted by defence counsel.”

The defence counsel was his father Sont, a well-known Bangkok lawyer. Somchai Chaiyasut had a well-connected family, and his defence was to receive some very influential support.

V. ONE BULLET MAY NOT BE ENOUGH

Thailand at the time was ruled by a hated triumvirate of military dictators — field marshals Thanom Kittikachorn and Prapas Charusathien, as well as Thanom’s son Colonel Narong who was married to a daughter of Prapas.

“We have collected enough evidence to prosecute the case and the punishment will undoubtedly be execution before a firing squad,” declared Narong after Somchai was arrested. “One bullet may not be enough. It should be 81.”

But the junta soon became uneasy about the case and the international attention it was attracting. Obsessed with Thailand’s image abroad, they fretted that the kingdom would look bad in the eyes of the world if a Thai policeman was convicted of such a grievous crime.

The fact the bomb had been smuggled aboard the plane at Don Muang was also an embarrassment to the dictators, who had long boasted about the airport’s excellent security.

Prapas began insisting that Somchai must be innocent, because it was inconceivable that a Thai man would murder his own child. He claimed that Cathay Pacific had concocted the allegations to discredit Don Muang and bring greater air traffic to Hong Kong’s rival Kai Tak International Airport.

Asked about these absurd claims, a Thai government spokesman told reporters: “Field Marshal Prapas and other officials have said there was no bomb on the plane, this was only the propaganda of another airport to destroy the good name of Don Muang.”

The evidence presented at the trial appeared damning.

An official at the Thai embassy in Saigon testified that Somchai had been insistent on the cosmetics case being returned to him. Four similar cases were found in Somchai’s house, and he had drilled holes in two of them. His explanation was that he had planned to put a walkie talkie or camera in the cases and this was the reason for the holes.

A Thai police pilot told the court that he gave Somchai two pounds of C4 plastic explosive during a training course they had both attended. Another police witness said Somchai had asked him where would be the most effective place to plant a bomb on an aircraft, and he had replied it would be near the wings. An airline engineer said Somchai had quizzed him about the effects of a blast in a jetliner. Sathinee Somphitak told the court about Somchai’s effort to persuade her to take his daughter to Hong Kong.

There were 67 witnesses for the prosecution, and only four for the defence.

Somchai continued to protest his innocence. At one point he wailed: “How could I kill my own daughter?”

On May 30, 1974, the head judge, Criminal Court deputy director Chitti Vuthipranee, delivered his verdict.

In a two-and-a-half-hour summing up, he said the court accepted that a bomb had brought down flight CX700Z, but there was no proof Somchai had planted it. No witnesses had seen him placing explosives in the cosmetic case, and Somwang had not noticed anything amiss. Surely she would have noticed the extra weight if a bomb was inside?

The judge declared that the testimony of the police officer who said he had given C4 explosive to Somchai was not credible, asking: “Why didn’t he use it himself? Why did he deliberately give it to Somchai?”

Moreover, the judge declared, Somchai’s family was not poor, and there was no reason for him to kill his own flesh and blood just for the sake of money.

The verdict: not guilty.

“Hundreds of spectators standing on tables, chairs and benches and in a solid mass across the floor of the stifling, airless court greeted the verdict with cheers, deafening applause and a blaze of flashbulbs,” wrote New Zealand journalist John McBeth in his report for the Bangkok Post.

Recalling the case four decades later in his memoir Reporter, published in 2011, he wrote: “As with many people involved with the case, I was appalled that — blinded by nationalistic sentiment and the notion that one of their own could not possibly have committed such a crime — many Thais seemed oblivious to the injustice of it all.”

The prosecutor launched an appeal, and another trial was held. The verdict, when it came in 1976, remained the same — not guilty.

Somchai Chaiyasut returned to his job at the Royal Thai Police. He took the insurance companies to court to force payment of the travel accident policies he had taken out for Somwang and Sonthaya, and by 1978 he had received his 5.5 million baht. In 1983 he moved to the United States.

Distraught relatives of the dead were aghast at the verdict, which made a mockery of the Thai justice system. Some even considered hiring a hitman to kill Somchai.

But in the end, there was no need. In 1985, Somchai returned to Bangkok after being diagnosed with liver cancer, and died shortly afterwards. He was 43 years old.

On the morning of June 9, 1946, the 20-year-old Ananda Mahidol, King Rama VIII of Siam, was shot through the head and killed in his bedroom in the Barompiman Hall building in the Grand Palace complex in Bangkok. Later that day his 18-year-old brother Bhumibol Adulyadej was proclaimed King Rama IX.

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“Ever since I was first posted to Thailand 30 years ago, I have been impressed by the richness of Thai culture, be it art, sculpture, dance, music or literature,” declared British ambassador Quinton Quayle in an unusual statement from the embassy in October 2009. “All this is embellished by the natural beauty of the landscape and the charm and warmth of the Thai people.”

The reason for this effusve praise of Thailand was that a despatch from 42 years before, in which a previous ambassador had been much less complimentary about the kingdom, had been rediscovered, causing a minor diplomatic incident.

The man who had caused the kerfuffle was aristocratic envoy Sir Anthony Rumbold.

In March 1965, The London Gazette published an announcement that Sir Horace Anthony Claude Rumbold, 10th baronet of the Rumbold dynasty — to give him his full name and title — had been appointed “Her Majesty’s Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary at Bangkok” with effect from December 21, 1964.

Rumbold was a career diplomat who first joined the foreign service in 1935. In 1937, he married his first wife Felicity. The best man at the wedding was his close friend Donald McLean, who was exposed as a Soviet spy in May 1951 when he fled to Moscow with fellow agent Guy Burgess. This led to suspicion that Rumbold was the so-called “fifth man” in the Soviet spy ring known as the Cambridge Five, who has never been conclusively identified. But no evidence was ever found to incriminate him.

Rumbold was principal private secretary to British foreign minister Anthony Eden in 1954 and 1955. He accompanied Eden and the prime minister, Winston Churchill, on a trip to Washington in June 1954 for talks with President Dwight D. Eisenhower. When Eden succeeded Churchill as prime minister in April 1955, Rumbold became principal private secretary to the new foreign minister, Harold McMillan.

In 1960 he became minister at the British embassy in Paris — second in command after the ambassador. After that came his posting to Thailand.

This was an era in which almost all senior members of the British foreign service were men who had been educated at Eton College and the University of Oxford. Rumbold was a typical example, schooled at Eton and then getting a degree from Magdalen College, Oxford. Britain remained a class-ridden society in which the elite had highly condescending attitudes towards foreigners.

Rumbold was born in 1911, an era when most British believed theirs was the most powerful nation on earth, and this conditioned the attitudes of his generation. Even in the 1960s when Britain’s global clout was in chronic decline, archaic attitudes still prevailed among the upper classes. All of which helps explain the highly prejudiced and chauvenistic diplomatic despatch Rumbold sent to foreign minister George Brown and the Foreign Office in London on July 13, 1967.

For centuries, until the practice was stopped on the orders of the government in 2006, there was a tradition in the British foreign service for ambassadors about to depart their posting in a country to write a so-called valedictory despatch, in which they threw all diplomatic niceties to the wind and gave their uncensored opinions on the nation they were leaving. Most ambassadors, many of whom liked to consider themselves superb prose stylists, devoted a great deal of time and thought to their valedictory despatches. The ability to write a compelling final despatch was a status symbol for senior diplomats.

As Christopher Meyer, who was ambassador to Berlin and then Washington, wrote in The Telegraph in 2015:

In the good old days of Her Majesty’s Diplomatic Service, it was the custom for ambassadors to write a valedictory despatch at the end of their posting. In contrast to the rather utilitarian style of daily diplomatic reporting, ambassadors were expected to spread their wings a little with candid comment on the country in which their service was coming to an end, larded, where the wit was willing, with humorously pungent observations on the character of the local population. Though always addressed to the foreign secretary personally, the best of the despatches were widely distributed throughout the diplomatic service for the enlightenment and amusement of its members.

A Valedictory Despatch gained an added dimension when an ambassador was not just leaving his or her post, but was retiring from the Diplomatic Service. This would give envoys the chance to comment on their entire careers, 30 years or more, with the same candour and wit.

As you may imagine, these were usually pretty sensitive. They were very definitely not intended for public consumption. They could give serious offence to any number of countries if their contents became known outside the portals of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

According to Chris Patton, the last British governor of Hong Kong until it returned to Chinese rule in 1997:

I thought it was a splendid tradition. It’s impotant to remeber that the final telegram from an ambassador at the end of his career represents the mountain top in this cultural exercise.

Often, however, valedictory despatches tended to be an excuse to unleash prejudiced stereotypes about a country and its people. They also tended to be rather grandiloquent and overwrought — Denis McShane, who was a Foreign Office minister between 2001 and 2005, likened ambassadorial despatches to the essays applicants have to write in the savagely competitive process to secure a fellowship at the fearsomely intellectual All Souls College in Oxford:

The days when, once a week, an ambassador would go into a darkened room and write an essay as if they were competing for a fellowship at All Souls are gone.

There are plenty of jaw-dropping comments in valedictory despatches. Robert Tesh, outgoing ambassador to Vietnam, wrote his final despatch in March 1978:

After four years in Hanoi I shall be overjoyed to leave. Of the six European Community missions here, four live, and three have their offices, in rat-infested hotels…

In the face of fact, few Vietnamese will lose face, admit they are wrong, or use common sense…

They leave everything to the last moment, then blandly rely on outsiders to extricate them from their own mess. They are infinitely charming and will give ten different reasons for not doing something which they have for months said they wanted to do and over which one has gone to endless trouble. After months of silence they will demand immediate and almost impossible action. Most things get done, somehow or other, at the expense of the nerves of others. That is why most foreigners in Vietnam, diplomats or not, are on the verge of insanity.

Malcolm Walker, ambassador to Liberia, June 1967

I have with regret to record that many of the people, particularly the women, are arrogant and ill-mannered… I think it would be difficult to fall in love with the country or its people

Roger Pinsent, ambassador to Nicaragua, June 1967:

There is, I fear, no question but that the average Nicaraguan is one of the most dishonest, unreliable, violent and alcoholic of the Latin Americans — and after nearly 21 years of Latin American experience I feel I can speak with some authority on this subject.

Sir David Hunt, high commissioner to Nigeria, May 1969:

The Nigerians certainly deserve a happy and united future after all they have gone through. I have a great affection for them because they are generally cheerful and friendly in spite of their maddening habit of always choosing the course of action which will do the maximum damage to their own interests. They are not singular in this: Africans as a whole are not only not averse to cutting off their nose to spite their face; they regard such an operation as a triumph of cosmetic surgery. But at least they usually make their blunders with an engaging air.

Reykjavik ambassador Aubrey Halford-McLeod on Icelanders in August 1970:

It is true that, alongside their many positive sterling virtues, [Icelanders] suffer from strong xenophobic tendencies, are grasping and opportunist, unjustifiably conceited and ashamedly suppliant in the same breath. They are not a comfortable people to handle and there is probably little we can do to change them.

Helsinki ambassador Sir Bernard Ledwidge in October 1972:

It could plausibly be argued that it is a misfortune for anybody but a Finn to spend three years in Finland, as I have just done. Even the Finns who can afford it are happy to make frequent escapes to sunnier climes. Finland is flat, freezing, and far from the pulsating centres of European life. Nature has done little for her and art not much more. Until yesterday the country was inhabited only by peasants, foresters, fishermen and a small class of alien rulers who spent most of their money elsewhere… Finnish cooking deserves a sentence to itself for its crude horror; only the mushrooms and the crayfish merit attention.

Jakarta ambassador Sir John Ford, February 1978:

Like the Balinese volcano Gunung Agung which bottles up its energy until the pent-up force within breaks out, so within the Javanese it seems as if a natural tendency towards violence is pent-up; cruelty is ever near the surface; and all hell breaks loose when restraints collapse. There is something particularly repulsive about the propensity to cold cruelty of the Indonesian.

But even by these standards, the valedictory despatch from Sir Anthony Rumbold on Thailand was particularly withering.

The summary at the start of the despatch already sets the tone:

The Thais are as difficult to understand as other orientals. (Paragraph 1.)

The domination of Bangkok. (Paragraph 2.)

General contentment and lethargy. (Paragraph 3.)

The rigid structure of society and the rules which govern it. Unwillingness to assume responsibility and endemic corruption. (Paragraphs 4-6.)

The country is governed by a benevolent dictatorship without a dictator. A description of some of the leading personalities. (Paragraphs 7-11.)

If there are constitutional developments it will be because the Thais like to be thought up to date. (Paragraph 12.)

Boom conditions and prospects of indefinite economic progress. (Paragraph 13.)

Importance of not over-estimating the terrorist movement in the north-east. (Paragraph 14.)

The Thais are afraid of China and although they do not like to be dependent on foreigners they will tolerate the American presence as long as they feel that it keeps danger at a distance. If the Americans let go in Viet-Nam the Thais might change course. There is not likely to be a sudden revulsion against the Americans. (Paragraphs 15-16.)

Our stake in Thailand is the same as that of other West European countries. Our membership of SEATO makes no difference. Our export performance could be better. (Paragraph 17.)

The Thai tradition of sending children to England to be educated gives us a certain advantage. The best way we can help the Thais is In the field of education. (Paragraph 18.)

The pleasures of living in Thailand, the virtues of the Thais and a tribute to the Embassy staff. (Paragraphs 19-20.)

Rumbold began his despatch by diving headfirst into the tired stereotype that Thais — and all Asians — are inscrutable, and rational Westerners will never be able to understand “oriental people”:

There is a theory that the Thais are rather easier for Europeans to understand than are other oriental people. I do not believe this theory. It seems to me that Sino/Indian/Malay/Thai ways of thought are so alien to ours that analogies between events in South-East Asia and events in Europe are nearly always misleading, that forecasts based on such analogies are bound to be wrong, that the motives of Asians are impossible for us to estimate with any exactness, and that Thailand and the Thais offer no exception. to these precepts.

He then pivoted to casually insulting the intelligence of the vast majority of the Thai population:

The general level of intelligence of the Thais is rather low, a good deal lower than ours and much lower than that of the Chinese. But there are a few very intelligent and articulate ones and I have often tried to get some of these with whom I believe myself to be on close terms to come clean with me and to describe their national characteristics as they see them themselves and to explain why they behave in this way rather than in that way. The result has never been satisfactory. Something alwavs seems to be held back.

Rumbold was, at least, fairly accurate about the dominant position of Bangkok in the kingdom:

There is one thing that nevertheless seems to me to be quite certain and that is that Bangkok dominates Thailand in the same way in which for centuries Paris dominated France. Events outside Thailand can obviously have an effect inside the capital and in some circumstances provincial developments might have a limited influence. But all political, economic and social changes of any importance in Thailand are the result of calculations and decisions taken by men in Bangkok and reflect the development of relationships between men or groups of men in Bangkok. There are historical reasons for this. Until recently it was the King who decided everything. It was only by being attached to the King's court that anyone could hope to acquire influence or money… Bangkok sucks everything to itself. It is moreover extraordinary how little the average citizen of Bangkok knows at first hand about the rest of his country. Those who can afford to travel for pleasure go to Europe and America. Apart from occasional visits to nearby seaside resorts or to Chiengmai which has a certain snob appeal they do not dream of travelling in any other part of the country. They are simply not interested.

Rumbold lamented the transformation of Bangkok over the previous decade:

The outward aspect of Bangkok has undergone some regrettable changes during the last few years. When I caught a glimpse of it in 1955 it was a pretty place of canals and trees and scarlet-and-gold temples. It is now fast becoming one of the ugliest towns in the world, indistinguishable from the meaner parts of Tokyo or Los Angeles.

He discussed the rigidly hierarchical nature of Thai society and the culture of prostration. Although he found the practice “irritating and even repulsive” he believed it helped maintain some degree of stability in the kingdom:

The traveller Henri Mouhot described the whole of Siamese society in the mid-19th century as being in a state of permanent prostration, every inferior receiving his orders from his superior with signs of abject submission and respect. This is metaphorically still true of Bangkok and in some detail still literally true. But I would go so far as to make the unfashionable assertion that the most steadying feature in the body politic of Thailand, irritating and even repulsive though it may be, is precisely this sense of his place in society possessed and accepted by each and every individual.

He derided the “unctuous servility” towards King Bhumibol in local media:

The god-like position of the King is questioned by nobody, not even by the handful of Thai exiles who compose seditious propaganda (at least not openly). Foreigners get sickened by the unctuous servility with which the local Press reports the daily doings of His Majesty; and conversely even Europeanised Thais are quick to resent any off-hand references to the King or the Queen in the foreign Press however well intentioned these may be. Below the King, very far below him, the individuals who control the nation are ranged in their respective places each one knowing exactly how he or she stands in relation to each other. These relationships are perfectly clear to the Thais themselves and are on the whole accepted as part of the natural order of things. The foreigner must not try to unravel and define them in all their complexity because the task is too difficult. The best he can do is to try to understand the general rules by which they seem to be established.

He noted that wealth, and proximity to military power, were important factors determining status and influence:

Since the revolution of 1932 which put an end to the absolute monarchy, though scarcely affecting the veneration owed to the monarch, proximity to the source of military power has been the most important factor in assuring influence and position. In that year there was a sort of cataclysm in the Siamese universe producing a new magnetic field and setting the stars on new courses. The shock-waves are still felt to-day although their force has diminished since the death of Field-Marshal Sarit in 1963. Money is another important factor. All Thais love money and the possession of it is regarded as a sign of virtue or merit. They call it vitamin M. The amount of it and the use made of it is of more significance in their eyes than the method by which it has been acquired. Family connections are very important. Even good birth is still a factor to be reckoned with, for weight is still given to titles and honorifics and the rules of social precedence continue to be strictly regarded. Nearly all those who have handles to their names are descended from one or other or both of the great 19th century Kings, Mongkut or his son Chulalongkorn, each of whom had about 100 children.

He argued that the burueaucracy was infused with the old traditions of the royal court, which meant obsequious grovelling and corruption were ubiquitous:

…the tradition of obsequiousness which might be proper or at least understandable in a royal court has been carried over into the Civil Service. Independence of mind is frowned upon and willingness to take responsibility is firmly discouraged. But the making of money by the exploitation of official position is accepted as normal provided certain understood limits are not exceeded. This has always been so and it is natural that it should continue to be so, so long as the public service confers more prestige than do other occupations and yet remains miserably paid.

Rumbold claimed that admirable qualities like intelligence and diligence were not particularly valued in Thailand:

At the end of the list of factors which determine the rules of relationship is that collection of human qualities or assets, intelligence, good education, hard work, single-mindedness and so forth which we overselves pretend to prize. In Thailand these qualities count for a certain amount but they count for very much less than they do in Europe or America.

He was scathing about Thanat Khoman, the foreign minister, his main interloctor in the Thai government:

He is quite comfortably off and has a rich wife. He retains his position principally through the protection of the King, who began to take an interest in him a year or two ago, as well as through his unquestioned abilities. He is also on good terms with the Prime Minister. But he is vain, touchy and disputatious. Most of his colleagues in the Government dislike him for his intellectualmarrogance and because he lets everybody including themselves know that he despises them. He keeps everything to himself and is beastly to his subordinates…

He is a strong adherent of the American alliance and supporter of American policies, though his attitude towards the United States is qualified by xenophobia and the Americans find him difficult to handle. He is a vigorous promoter of all forms of regional co-operation. I think he is ambitious and would like to be Prime Minister one day and I feel fairly confident that the King sees him in this light. But without the backing of the King, and for the time being at any rate of the Prime Minister, he would soon be cast aside. There are some who think that he has already steered his country too far away from the traditional Thai policy of non-involvement for his own future good and that retribution will one day overtake him. His obsessions about liberals", about the French and about Cambodia sometimes make one wonder whether he is altogether sane. But he is not entirely repulsive. He quite likes the British, indeed he worked with us in the war, but he regrets our present weakness and our tendency to appeasement as he sees it.

Rumbold was dismissive of Prince Dhani, the president of the privy council:

Brief mention must be made of Prince Dhani, President of the Privy Council and one of the only scholars in this lowbrow country. Over 80 and of an amiability bordering on feeble-mindedness he is worth considering for what he represents. He is the guardian of arcane court lore and the regulator of royal custom and procedure.

He pointed out the contradiction that Thais “mind a great deal about what foreigners think of them, though they resent any interference by foreigners” and noted that Thai aristocrats preferred to have their children educated in England:

One of our assets here is that a large proportion of the ruling class has been educated in England. The tradition of English education goes back a long way and shows few signs of declining. The King is having his only son educated in England because he believes strongly that all Thai youth is in need of the kind of discipline which only our schools can provide. In terms of actual numbers more Thais now go to the United States than to England mainly because there is more money available for scholarships. But most Thais would send their children to England for preference. Th ey still have a touching faith in the character-building qualifications of English schools. The whole top crust is strongly marked by the imprint of the English educational tradition. At the biggest "public school" in Bangkok the boys play fives and sing "forty years on" and at luncheon with the board of the Bank of Thailand the talk is about the county cricket championship. One must accept all this without scoffing because it all helps.

He ended his despatch with a barrage of insults about the culture and character of the Thais, with a couple of compliments thrown in. Because of their gracefulness and elegance, he said, “we are elephants and oxen they are gazelles and butterflies”:

I have very much enjoyed living for a while in Thailand. One would have to be very insensitive or puritanical to take the view that the Thais had nothing to offer. It is true that they have no literature, no painting and only a very odd kind of music, that their sculpture, their ceramics and their dancing are borrowed from others and that their architecture is monotonous and their interior decoration hideous. Nobody can deny that gambling and golf are the chief pleasures of the rich and that licentiousness is the main pleasure of them all. But it does a faded European good to spend some time among such a jolly, extrovert and anti- intellectual people. And if anybody wants to know what their culture consists of the answer is that it consists of themselves, their excellent manners, their fastidious habits, their graceful gestures and their elegant persons. If we are elephants and oxen they are gazelles and butterflies. On the other hand I am glad not to be staying here longer because I am certain that the deterioration in my mental processes is due not only to the onset of old age but more particularly to the enervating effects of the climate which no amount of exercise and airconditioning can nullify.

Valedictory despatches — especially those that were insulting about a country and its people — were usually restricted to relatively few recipients. Rumbold’s despatch was coded “Q” which designated a narrow distribution channel. But the clerk’s handwriting was indistinct and when it was printed, the despatch was mistakenly given a wide “A” distribution code.

This meant that it was sent to the foreign services of more than 50 countries in the Commonwealth, including Malaysia and Singapore. The despatch became notorious among diplomats, but the issue was soon forgotten. Rumbold’s letter was declassified 30 years after it was published, in 1997, in line with standard practice, and became available for reading at the British national archives at Kew on the outskirts of London, which is where I first encountered it.

You can download and read the full despatch here:

Rumbold | Goodbye To Thailand

5.35MB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download

In 2009, it was featured in a BBC podcast by British writer, broadcaster and former politician Matthew Parris, who had begun researching valedictory despatches:

This was what put Quinton Quayle in an awkward position — the podcast had drawn attention to a despatch that would otherwise have remained rarely read in the national archives. The Thais were not amused.

“My own views differ from my predecessor of 42 years ago,” Quayle, a fluent Thai speaker who was on his second diplomatic posting to Bangkok, said in his statement.

Meanwhile, Thai foreign ministry spokesman Vimon Kidchob said the government considered the matter closed, and gave only a very brief comment on Rumbold:

This is only his personal opinion based on his own prejudices, not an official one.

Rumbold moved to a new post as British ambassador to Vienna. When he retired from the foreign service, his valedictory despatch in April 1970 was almost as rude about the Austrians as he had been about the Thais:

Austrians have become steadily and uninterruptedly better off… One would have expected their success to have strengthened their patriotism and their self-confidence. But it has hardly had any such effect. On the contrary, the Austrians still talk about their country in a deprecating way. The fact of being Austrian does not particularly stir them. It is only when ski-championships are involved that they show the slightest signs of chauvinism. They do not know the words of their national anthem. Their attachments have become more and more local and the interests increasingly private …

I am afraid that the average modern Austrian only thinks about his Schnitzel and his annual holiday…

Sir Horace Anthony Claude Rumbold, 10th Rumbold baronet, died on December 4, 1983. He was 72 years old.

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Adding to the absurdity, it is narrated in booming portentous tones by Sir John Gielgud, a towering figure in 20th century British theatre whose mellifluous voice was described by fellow actor Sir Alec Guinness as being “like a silver trumpet muffled in silk”. The script is ludicrously overblown and Orientalist — in the very first sentence of his narration, Gielgud is already declaiming about “the mystic East” — and riddled with outrageous errors throughout.

It was produced and directed by a woman obsessed with New Age mysticism and paranormal phenomena who was so passionately royalist that she told Queen Sirikit she loved her. The journalist who worked on the project was appalled by the film and described it to me as “bizarre”. It was in clear breach of BBC standards of impartiality and should never have been broadcast.

And yet — in spite of all that — it’s absolutely fascinating. Soul of a Nation is the most remarkable and revealing film ever made about the Thai monarchy.

Part of its value is that it lets us see the monarchy’s mythmaking in action, with the royals acting out their roles in a grand theatrical spectacle. It’s beautifully filmed, too.

But the best thing about the documentary is that it actually subverts the ham-fisted propaganda it is trying to promote. Although it tries very hard to tell a fake story, huge chunks of reality come crashing through.

The BBC team was given unprecedented access to the monarchy — no foreign television crew had ever been allowed to interview Thai royals so candidly and informally. The film gives us an unparalleled insight into the personalities of Bhumibol and Sirikit, exposing them as far from the saintly figures they pretended to be.

To understand the contradictions of Soul of a Nation, it’s important to know how and why it was made. I’ve been fascinated by the film ever since I first saw it, and over several years I’ve done some extensive research into this background. The story I uncovered is as extraordinary as the film itself.

The tale begins with the appalling massacre of students at Thammasat University on October 6, 1976, by Thai soldiers, police and right-wing vigilantes.

The world was shocked by images of the violence, most famously the Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph by Neal Ulevich showing a man using a folding chair to beat the corpse of a student that had been hung from a tree, while a mob laughed and cheered.

What was the king fretting about most after these horrific scenes? His reputation.

Even more than most monarchs, Bhumibol Adulyadej always cared deeply about his image. The palace propaganda machine — ably assisted by the United States — had spent decades promoting him as a wise, benevolent king working tirelessly for his people.

After 1973, when Bhumibol was (misleadingly) credited with kicking out the hated “three tyrants” ruling the kingdom and ushering in a new era of democracy, his reputation in Thailand and around the world soared to new heights.

He was terrified that the Thammasat massacre had ruined this, and desperate to try to salvage his image. Just three days after the massacre he met an old acquaintance, Malcolm Macdonald, a retired British diplomat who had previously held very senior roles in Southeast Asia and who happened to be visiting Bangkok.

A confidential cable recounting their conversation says Bhumibol “wanted his picture of events here to be understood with appropriate discretion in influential quarters abroad”. The king blamed the events at Thammasat on various groups including communists and foreigners.

Ten days later, on October 19, US ambassador Charles Whitehouse met Bhumibol’s principal private secretary Thawisan Ladawan over a long lunch.

Thawisan, who was the husband of Sirikit’s younger sister Busba, said Bhumibol was extremely worried about the “false impression” created by recent events.

Whitehouse recounted their conversation in a secret cable to Washington.

Despite Whitehouse’s blunt response to Thawisan, the US and UK were extremely keen to help Bhumibol rehabilitate the reputation of the monarchy. They feared that Thailand was at risk of falling to the communists and believed Bhumibol played a crucial role in holding the kingdom together.

In 1978, a new British ambassador arrived in Bangkok to take up his post. The 57-year-old Peter Tripp was a veteran diplomat and obsequious royalist who relished the opportunity to socialise with Bhumibol and Sirikit.

On August 27 that year, the royal family travelled to a village in Narathiwat province for one of the king’s ostentatious development trips. As usual, some diplomats and media were brought along. Tripp was there, and so was Bridget Winter, a 46-year-old BBC documentary maker.

Winter was a follower of a New Age movement based on the book A Course in Miracles. According to her own eccentric account of how she got involved with the movement, it all started in February 1975 when she was having coffee one morning at her flat in London with a neighbour, Grace Brooks, who suddenly had a vision of another neighbour being involved in a terrible car crash:

We were happily chatting when she suddenly became extremely agitated. Flushed and near to tears, she described a woman (who lived in the apartment above her) being flung, bleeding, over her steering wheel, having just crashed her car. People were shouting; a crowd was gathering; a police car stopped by; an ambulance eventually came … all the ingredients of a bad accident scene.

Several days later, according to Winter, the accident really happened, exactly as Brooks had foreseen.

This led to a conversation with Brooks about telepathy and the paranormal, which led to a discussion about Adolf Hitler (bear with me here) then to a discussion about the “Spear of Destiny”, a fabled artefact reputed to have pierced the side of Christ as he was being crucified and which possessed mystic powers. Via various other twists in the tale, the Spear of Destiny eventually led Winter to attend a talk on A Course in Miracles, which changed her life.

In 1978 she was planning to make a television series about various forms of mysticism and spirituality around the world, and this was what brought her to Thailand.

Winter said she was captivated observing the royal family during the trip to Narathiwat:

I had been watching them at work in the afternoon in a local village, where the King, kneeling on the ground with his maps, listened and discussed the villagers’ problems. Volunteer doctors dispensed medicines to the sick; welfare and craft projects were overseen; and a new dam, initiated by the King, was being surveyed by expert engineers. It was an amazing scene, and I was riveted.

As she was watching, Queen Sirikit came over to talk to her, and the two quickly bonded over their shared interest in paranormal phenomena:

Unexpectedly and very quietly, the Queen came over to me, took me by the hand, and led me to see two children with an endemic eye disease.  She explained how they, and their families, would be taken to Bangkok in the care of palace officials until they were cured, and then returned to their village. We discussed the many problems of caring for people in the border areas, especially when they were being infiltrated by militants. And then we just got chatting, woman to woman, and it transpired we had many mutual interests, including the paranormal, with which Queen Sirikit was fascinated.

Just as I was asking about Buddhism and the strength it gave them for their work, the King moved away, and the long retinue followed. On the way back to the Palace, officials made it clear to me that it was just ‘not done’ to have a long audience with Her Majesty (we must have been talking for about half an hour), without it first having been cleared through the appropriate channels. Imagine, then, the shock-horror when Lord Chamberlain later announced that Their Majesties would like me to dine with them at 8.30pm!

At the dinner, Winter became further enraptured by the royals, Sirikit in particular, and became convinced that the Thai monarchy shared the same principles as A Course in Miracles:

When we met again, Queen Sirikit explained that she wanted the King to tell me about Buddhism, because, as Head of Religion, he was the expert.  As we ate, and King Bhumibhol talked about Buddhism, what became increasingly obvious, and really very striking, was the seeming number of similarities between the concepts he was describing and those I was studying in A Course in Miracles.

However, what I shall never forget from the conversation that flowed on that remarkable evening was the Queen saying, “You know, Bridget, we love you. We feel we know you.” As I heard myself replying “I feel the same way”— and meaning it with all my heart...  It was a dazzling demonstration that miracles can happen, even between kings and commoners who live on opposite ends of the earth.

By the time Bridget Winter left her dinner with Bhumibol and Sirikit she was a fanatical devotee of the Thai royals and determined to make a documentary about them, with the full support of the palace. Tripp, the British ambassador, thought this was an excellent plan. They all agreed it was the best way to rehabilitate the image of the Thai monarchy abroad.

Winter travelled back to London and pitched the idea to the BBC, telling them that thanks to her personal connections with the king and queen, she could secure unprecedented access for the documentary.

The BBC accepted the proposal, but John Gau, the head of current affairs, wanted an experienced journalist on the project. He approached David Lomax, a widely admired 40-year-old correspondent.

Lomax died in 2014 but I spoke to him two years earlier about the making of Soul of a Nation. He told me why he was brought on board:

My boss at the time, John Gau, said the BBC had accepted a proposal from Bridget Winter for a major documentary. She was impressed by the Thai royals and thought they were beyond criticism and the last bastion against the encroaching communist hordes.

The BBC managers were attracted by the access she promised but wanted a reporter who could inject a bit of balance. I was warned that this would demand diplomacy — and certainly more than keeping my head down when near His Majesty.

Lomax was legendary for fearlessly asking tough questions — earlier in 1978 he had asked the murderous Ugandan dictator Idi Amin: “Do you eat the hearts of your enemies?” During the interview, Amin had roared with laughter, saying: “Mr Lomax, you are a very brave man.”

So Soul of a Nation was riven with contradictions from the start.

Winter, who would produce and direct the documentary, was a New Age mystic who revered the Thai royals and wanted to make a hagiography — exactly the kind of propaganda film the palace was hoping for.

Lomax, who would do the reporting and interviews, was a respected journalist who believed in impartiality and asking questions, and wanted to make a factual and balanced documentary about the monarchy.

They had totally different visions about what kind of film they were making, and before long, inevitably, tensions erupted.

The BBC team made three trips to Thailand during late 1978 and early 1979. Their main facilitators in the palace were Bhumibol’s close confidante and deputy principal private secretary Butrie Viravaidya, and her husband, the half-Scottish “condom king” Mechai Viravaidya. According to Lomax:

The access we had while filming all over the country was remarkable. Much of it was arranged by Mechai and Butrie who were extraordinarily helpful. We were showered with filming opportunities.

Bridget seemed fascinated by temple ceremonies — we must have filmed at least 25. When asked how these would fit together and what the overall plan was, we were told that all these decisions would be made later in the cutting room.

While Winter was fixated on temple ceremonies, Lomax was asking questions nobody had ever dared to ask Bhumibol and Sirikit before.

He asked Bhumibol about the death of his brother Ananda, and whether he was lonely, and whether the royals were only helping the poor because otherwise they would turn to communism. He asked Sirikit what the communists thought about the monarchy, and whether it was true that the royals were the biggest capitalists in the country. He probably asked plenty even more provocative questions that didn’t make it into the documentary.

Several times in Soul of a Nation, Bhumibol and Sirikit are visibly annoyed and uncomfortable during their conversations with Lomax. They were simply not used to being talked to like this. It’s wonderful to watch.

Winter was furious, Lomax told me:

I was told not to ask questions, particularly about the crown prince and Sirikit. But none of my questions seemed to affect the cooperation of the palace who continued to be open and friendly.

Meanwhile, Winter was in regular contact with Tripp at the embassy, telling him that Lomax was alienating the Thai royal family and putting British interests at risk.

Things came to a head over breakfast one morning during the third trip to Thailand. Winter, who was well connected at the BBC, told Lomax he was being removed from the project, and she had phoned director general Ian Trethowan, the most important man in the whole organisation, to get his agreement.

The BBC is a large and complex bureaucracy, and the current affairs division fiercely defends its independence from meddling. Lomax’s boss told him to disregard the instruction to leave.

But after the team got back to the UK, Lomax was completely frozen out:

When we all returned to London I went back to normal reporting duties. Bridget was allowed to have her own cutting room in which to finish the documentary. I was not to have any further part in it.

Lomax told me Winter took several months during 1979 to produce a rough cut of the film:

When the bosses were summoned to view a rough cut, I understand they were horrified by its length and lack of structure. They suggested improvements and Bridget went back to the cutting room for another few months.

What eventually emerged was a film I hardly recognised. The title was her idea and so was the hiring of Gielgud to read the script — which was not written by me. The whole effect was bizarre.

Soul of a Nation had become an embarrassment — and a major headache — for the BBC. They had commissioned an extremely expensive documentary that had turned out to be a preposterous mess.

The film couldn’t really be fixed, but they couldn’t just scrap it either, after all the cooperation the Thai monarchy had given. They didn’t want to create a diplomatic crisis.

Their solution was to split the film into two parts and quietly broadcast it on the much less widely viewed BBC2 channel, in graveyard slots late in the evening, without any fanfare. Part one was scheduled to be broadcast at 9:25 pm on Saturday, January 5, 1980, with part two shown at 10 pm on Monday, January 7. Since each episode was more than an hour and 20 minutes long, the late timing ensured a tiny audience. The BBC made no effort to promote the film in advance. They felt this was the best way to just make the problem go away with a minimum of fuss.

But this was far from the end of the drama.

Winter, who had no notion of editorial independence, wanted to be sure that Bhumibol and Sirikit were happy with the film. She insisted that it should be shown to them in advance to secure their approval. This was completely contrary to BBC editorial guidelines, but she enlisted the help of her friend Peter Tripp at the British embassy.

The Foreign Office argued that if the royals were unhappy with the film it could damage British relations with Thailand, and after some initial resistance, the BBC bosses caved in. A copy of Soul of a Nation was dispatched to Thailand so the king and queen could have a private viewing of the documentary before it was broadcast.

On the evening of January 3, Tripp and his wife spent an hour and a half with Bhumibol and Sirikit to hear their verdict. Tripp conveyed their views in a cable to the BBC the following day, copied to the Foreign Office.

It’s an extraordinary document because it demonstrates the extent to which the British authorities had become involved in Soul of a Nation, trampling all over the independence of the BBC.

Here’s a copy of the cable in the National Archives in Kew. The reason for the green paper and the poor quality of the printing is that this is not the original document. Although the cable was originally designated as unclassified, a decision has later been made to censor one paragraph because it contains sensitive information, so this is a redacted copy.

Tripp wrote that Sirikit was “unreservedly” pleased with the documentary. Bhumibol, however, was less happy. Note the telling use of the word “generally” in paragraph 1:

HM is generally very appreciative of what he calls this “unique film”. For him it succeeds in projecting both the Thai king and the royal family.

We can assume that the redacted paragraph 2 goes on to detail what the king was not happy about.

The most important thing of all for the king, however, was finding out what people thought of him after seeing the film. He made a “strong personal plea” to Tripp to get the impressions of “a cross-section of ordinary people in Britain” about the Thai royals: “Please ask your friends to look at the film and let you know so you can tell me.”

It was yet another sign of Bhumibol’s obsession with his image and how he was perceived.

Tripp was eager to do what he was asked. He told the BBC he would send a list of “the names and numbers of people whose views would together make up a representative sample for me to put to the king”. The BBC was told to phone them up and tell them to watch the documentary “at the request of the British ambassador”.

Bhumibol went out of his way to praise Bridget Winter for her “integrity and sincerity”:

She succeeded in doing what she set out to do. She kept her word. I realised the great difficulties Bridget was working under, not the least from my own people.

No mention was made of David Lomax, who had caused the royals such annoyance.

A short while later another cable arrived at the BBC — the list of 15 friends of Tripp that BBC staff were supposed to phone to gauge their reaction to the film.

They included the playwright David Hare, actor Andrew Cruickshank, theatre director Andrew Conville, pianist Margueritte Wolff, crime fiction author Michael Gilbert, journalist Gavin Young, deputy Sunday Telegraph editor Gordon Brook-Shepherd, and Geoffrey Arthur who was master of Pembroke College, Oxford.

Obviously they didn’t represent a cross-section of ordinary people in Britain, but Bhumibol wasn’t really interested in what ordinary people thought anyway — he wanted to know how he was viewed by the British elite.

In an even more jaw-dropping intervention, Tripp told the Foreign Office to order the BBC to change the film to fix the issue that Bhumibol had complained about. This was totally irregular — a British ambassador interfering in the content of a BBC documentary on behalf of the king of Thailand.

We don’t know exactly what aspect of the film Bhumibol objected to, because the cables have been so heavily redacted. But there is enough information in the documents that the censors missed to piece together some of the facts.

It’s clear that the king complained about one specific passage in the script. On January 3, the same evening he had met Bhumibol and Sirikit, Tripp cabled the Foreign Office telling them to intervene with the BBC to get the problem sorted. “Suppressing the sound-track for a suitable period would seem the easiest solution,” he suggested.

Even the Foreign Office seem to have been taken aback by this request. A reply from London on January 4 says the BBC had informed them that “it is technically impossible to blank out the explanation of royal vocabulary” — another clue to what Bhumibol was upset about — but that the problem had been smoothed over:

The Thai ambassador has been informed and has passed the message to the king, who said that he understood the situation, and liked the film.

But even though the king had already accepted that no changes could be made to Soul of a Nation, Tripp appears to have been furious. He fired back a cable to London on January 5 — the day part one of the film was due to be broadcast — which has been mostly redacted but includes this demand:

Please go back to the BBC at the highest appropriate level to ensure that the offending passage is in fact cut out before transmission.

When I first approached David Lomax back in 2012 to talk to him about Soul of a Nation, and told him that the Foreign Office had been trying to interfere with the film right up until it was broadcast, he told me this was nonsense — it simply could never have happened. When I showed him the cables, he was astonished.

We won’t know what passage in the film Bhumibol objected to, and whether it really did risk damaging relations with the monarchy or was just a storm in a teacup, until 2046 when the cables are declassified 30 years after his death.

It’s highly possible it was a very minor issue. Throughout his life Bhumibol had a habit of pedantry, always finding something to criticise in the work of others, to demonstrate his supposed superiority. If the problem really was an error in an “explanation of royal vocabulary” — presumably the special language rajasap which Thais are supposed to use when discussing the monarchy — it’s hard to see how that could cause an international incident.

On the other hand, Tripp clearly thought it was important enough to try to interfere with the editorial independence of the BBC, and presumably Bhumibol had asked him to do so. So maybe the issue was important, at least for Bhumibol.

At any rate, the BBC refused to budge, as the Foreign Office told Tripp in a cable a couple of days after the second episode was broadcast. The tone of the cable suggests that Foreign Office staff were growing weary of Tripp’s histrionics:

As requested, we approached the BBC again, but in the time available they could not excise the passage in question without making an obvious hole in the programme.

It’s actually highly unlikely that the passage could not have been removed, if the BBC had really wanted to do so, which clearly they did not.

The cable added that the BBC had informed the Foreign Office that broadcasting the passage Bhumibol had complained about had not caused any controversy:

None of the calls to the BBC after the programme referred to the offending passage. From past experience, any pressure group intending to capitalise on part of the programme would contact the BBC.

In a final slap in the face for the hapless ambassador, the BBC didn’t bother to call his 15 elite acquaintances, saying they were “unable to contact the people listed”. Instead, they would seek public reactions from the BBC audience research panel:

Replies will be assessed, rated and sent to you in approximately 3 weeks.

Bhumibol would be getting the views of a cross-section of ordinary people after all.

Tripp’s reply is not recorded in the cables.

And so, after more than a year of tension and drama, Soul of a Nation was finally broadcast, late in the evening on January 5 and January 7.

The film begins with ravishing footage of a private royal ritual, the naming ceremony for the infant Princess Bajrakitiyabha, with Bhumibol symbolically cutting off a lock of her hair and pouring lustral water over her head as a conch shell is blown.

It shows the Brahmin priests who are part of palace rituals alongside chanting Buddhist monks but are very rarely photographed or filmed.

Gielgud explains what the names of all the royals mean — Vajiralongkorn is comically translated as “Decorative Lightning” — and then in an increasingly overdramatic voice, he declaims:

But the question is, will this royal child enjoy long life? Will the evil be warded off? Can this monarchy, the soul of the nation, survive?

Clearly, this is not the measured tone of a normal balanced BBC current affairs documentary. We’re five minutes into the film and it’s already clear that Soul of a Nation is batshit crazy.

The script, by poet and author Leo Aylen, is full of this kind of melodramatic nonsense. The royals are proclaimed to be the selfless and sacred defenders of Thailand’s ancient culture of “purity, wisdom and peace” which is at risk of being “trampled out of existence by communist slogan-shouters who murder not only anyone who does not agree with them, but also anyone who possesses brains or talent to excite their envy.”

Gielgud’s absurdly over-the-top narration, more suited to a Hamlet soliloquy than a serious documentary, makes the whole thing unintentionally hilarious.

All the usual myths of Bhumibol’s kingship are wheeled out during the documentary — the visionary but humble monarch spending his days visiting remote villages to solve their problems, armed with a map, walkie talkie, and trusty pencil.

In one particularly preposterous sequence that flies so far beyond the BBC’s boundaries of balanced factual reporting that by now we’re on a completely different planet, Gielgud exclaims:

Impossible not to be overwhelmed by the energy of this man, who works round the clock for his people! What must he think of us technology-cosseted Westerners? The queen told us that we could never capture his life on film. We, with our union rules, would never work the hours that he does. Such powers of concentration! Radiant energy!

But gradually, as the film progresses, we start to see a truer picture of the monarchy, contrary to the image they are trying to project. This is thanks to the superb journalism of David Lomax, who managed to elicit the reality of the royals.

Lomax spoke at length to Bhumibol at Phu Phan Rajanives Palace in the mountains between Sakon Nakhon and Kalasin. The king insisted on being interviewed in his “study” in the palace, an austere room which was packed with dozens of radios chattering away in the background and maps and papers scattered everywhere. Bhumibol sat on the bare wooden floor wearing casual clothes and no shoes, which meant Lomax had to squat awkwardly opposite him.

It was a totally unsuitable way to do a TV interview, because of the noise, the mess, and the ridiculous seating arrangements, but it was perfect for how Bhumibol wanted to present himself —a man of action, living simply and frugally, staying up late into the night listening to radio reports from all over his kingdom as he toiled tirelessly to keep the country safe. To hammer home the message, Gielgud intones: “The study in his palace looks and sounds more like a command post.”

Sections of the interview are spread throughout the documentary. Bhumibol comes across as a lonely and cantankerous man, spouting meaningless rambling platitudes and homilies that are supposed to sound like deep wisdom.

As usual, he is deliberately dour and unsmiling. He has a blankly staring glass right eye and a frequent facial tic. He acts irritated at having to answer questions from Lomax, as if it is distracting him from the crucially important work he has to do.

In one riveting sequence, as Bhumibol sits scribbling on maps with a pencil, Lomax asks him what he is actually doing. Bhumibol is unable to give a coherent reply. The king gets even more annoyed when Lomax asks what all the radios are for:

I think you should know that radio is for communication.

Lomax asks another question that gets to the heart of Bhumibol’s personality:

When you sit here by yourself for several hours every evening looking at your maps and listening to the radios, is that because you are a lonely man, or because you need to have some time by yourself after all the public side of your life outside?

Again, Bhumibol can only respond with homilies:

I gather information by listening, I gather information by looking at the maps, or reading, or thinking, and then when the time comes I have the material in my head.

Throughout the documentary he says nothing truly insightful or wise. He does, at least, seem to be trying his best, and to sincerely believe that he is doing good.

Sirikit makes a considerably worse impression, with an infuriating accent and a simpering laugh. Despite being notorious for extravagance and all-night parties, she makes the outrageous claim that “usually we don’t have much private life, because we are considered father and mother of the nation, so naturally we are all the time with the people”.

Her excruciating romanticised account of how she and Bhumibol fell in love is among the highlights of the film.

At another point she is filmed tottering around a village in Sakon Nakhon wearing high heels to talk to impoverished locals.

In an interview at a military outpost, Sirikit claims soldiers are “loved everywhere” and “have won the heart of the people”. She squirms when Lomax points out that communists “tell villagers that the royal family are the biggest capitalists of all in Thailand”.

Sirikit is also filmed flirting with a soldier, praising him as a singer, guitarist and artist. What the documentary makers didn’t know is that the soldier was Narongdej Nanda-photidej, with whom she was openly infatuated. Bhumibol eventually became so enraged by Sirikit’s affair with Narongdej that he was sent away from Bangkok to the United States as a military attaché, and died in mysterious circumstances in New York in May 1985 after a game of tennis, at the age of just 38. 

The documentary exposes Sirikit as shallow, vain and fake.

Discussions with the royal children in Soul of a Nation are much briefer, but they still convey a sense of their personalities.

The 26-year-old Vajiralongkorn is mostly absent in the documentary — even back then, the royals knew he was toxic — but in one sequence he is portrayed as a brave soldier risking his life to fight the communist menace.

In his short interview with Lomax his mannerisms are strange, and when he is asked what the pressures of being crown prince are like, his answer is another highlight of the film:

I don’t know what it’s like because I have been born the first second of my life I’m a prince. It’s difficult to say what is it like to be a fish when you are a fish, or what is it like to be a bird when you are a bird, because you go and ask them, you know, it’s difficult, because they don’t know what it’s like, you know, to be a fish, or a bird.

He appears again briefly near the end of the film, talking about his time as a Buddhist monk.

The 23-year-old Sirindhorn seems the most likeable of the royals in the documentary — sweet, shy, and trying her best to earnestly answer Lomax’s questions.

But the main interview with Sirindhorn is rather marred by the fact that she is discussing Sirikit’s alarming habit of taking children from their parents during her trips around the country if she thought they looked cute, and bringing them back to the palace in Bangkok as pets.

As for the 21-year old Chulabhorn, another classic moment in the documentary is when she comes on stage at the Sai Jai Thai Fair to sing When a Child is Born while Geilgud explains — entirely inaccurately — that she is “a successful figure in Thai pop music”. Later, Chulabhorn claims that all the help provided to impoverished villagers is paid for by the royals, not by the government.

By the end of Soul of a Nation we feel we’ve been given real insight into the royals as a result of Lomax’s interviews, and that’s what makes the documentary so valuable.

We see through the facade — like the moment when the Wizard of Oz is revealed to be just an ordinary man hiding behind a curtain.

Sirikit, however, had no understanding that she gave such a bad impression in the film. She thought it made her look wonderful and wasted no time in seeking to use it for self-promotion.

At the end of January 1980, she was due to visit the United States with Vajiralongkorn. On behalf of Sirikit, deputy government spokesman Suwit Yodmanee approached Tripp to ask whether the BBC would screen Soul of a Nation in Los Angeles, Washington and New York just ahead of Sirikit’s arrival in each city, which would “have a very good PR effect”.

Tripp was enthusiastic about the suggestion, sending a cable to the BBC in which he bizarrely argued that a US firm like Coca Cola or IBM might sponsor the screenings and there could be “substantial financial advantage for the BBC”.

“We should strike while the iron is hot,” he told them.

There is no evidence the BBC ever considered Tripp’s daft suggestion — after all, they were extremely embarrassed about the film.

The US visit turned out to be a PR disaster for Sirikit, as Paul Handley explains in The King Never Smiles:

Her image plunged further with the spread of a damning underground account of her early 1980 trip to the United States with Prince Vajiralongkorn… The author characterized the trip as “67 days, 100 million baht ($5 million)”, and had enough insider information and accurate details to be wholly believable. The book alleged that the primary reason for the trip was plastic surgery, with a second reason being to collect more money for her personal needs in the name of her charities, and a third to stash palace wealth abroad in case the monarchy was forced to flee the country. It described the queen’s four large fund raisers in different American cities, reaping hundreds of thousands of dollars. Then it detailed her subsequent purchases of two homes in exclusive southern California neighbourhoods for her children, luxury cars for her son’s consorts, and a $200,000 ring for herself. The authors cited meetings with specific New York banks as evidence that the royals were putting assets offshore.

There was one small drama left in the saga of Soul of a Nation.

In February, frustrated at how the film had turned out, Lomax wrote an article about Thailand for The Sunday Telegraph Magazine. I’ve been unable to find it, and Lomax didn’t keep a copy, but he told me it “covered many of the points the film had suppressed”. In particular, he wrote about the widespread doubts about the suitability of Vajiralongkorn to be the next king of Thailand.

When Winter found out, she was outraged and phoned her friend Peter Tripp in Bangkok, saying the article “might cause offence to the Thai royal family”. He advised her to contact the deputy editor of the Sunday Telegraph to complain.

Once again, the Foreign Office in London was relaxed about the issue, cabling Tom Duggin, second secretary at the embassy, to say that “while the article does contain some rather derogatory remarks, particularly about the Crown Prince, they are not new” and that much of the article highlighted the king’s hard work. The cable said Winter’s accusations against Lomax were “a little exaggerated” and added:

As you are probably aware, relations between Miss Winter and Mr Lomax have been strained since the making of the BBC film.

A couple of weeks later, Tripp wrote to Winter, commiserating with her over the incident and telling her that Bhumibol had seen the article — which must have upset her. The interesting sections have been redacted, but it’s clear Tripp still had no understanding of the job that good journalists are supposed to do:

From my own point of view, it obviously makes my job more difficult, when irresponsible articles of this sort appear over the signature of people who have been recommended to The King for the job which they are doing on behalf of the BBC or any other reputable British institution.

He told Winter that Bhumibol had once again expressed his “high regard” and “admiration” for her.

Lomax was reprimanded by his boss John Gau for breaking the terms of his contract by publishing an article without prior permission but faced no further consequences and went on to have an even more stellar career.

“All this was a long time ago but I still have vivid memories of the openness and friendliness of the people,” he told me in 2012. “And of the frustration I still feel about what the programme might have been.”

Satellite images show it wasn’t yet there by the end of July 2019, although a space had already been cleared for it. By late February 2020, it had been installed, surrounded by pathways and a manicured garden.

A few months after it appeared in the palace, I was sent a photograph showing the plane’s arrival. The source was not able to confirm the exact date, but it’s clear that getting the Boeing into the palace was a major operation.

Sources also sent me images from within the palace grounds, showing the plane inside the compound. The picture on the left was taken soon after its arrival, with wooden decking on the ground to enable the aircraft to be brought in. The photo on the right is from a few months afterwards, with the decking removed and the lawn looking immaculate once again.

The obvious question is — why? What is a Thai Airways Boeing 737 doing in Vajiralongkorn’s garden?

Read more

Nobody should assume that the CIA was right about everything — far from it — and many of the documents are heavily redacted, but they nevertheless contain many useful insights. The following is an overview of documents that help shed some light on dark episodes in Thai history. It’s in chronological order, starting with the oldest documents then moving to more recent ones.

A loveless marriage and a rumoured abdication

On June 9, 1946, the 18-year-old Bhumibol Adulyadej accidentally shot his brother King Ananda Mahidol through the head when they were playing with a Colt .45 pistol in Ananda’s bedchamber in the Grand Palace in Bangkok. The distraught Bhumibol became King Rama IX the same day, but soon fled to Switzerland, ostensibly to finish his studies at the University of Lausanne, although he actually never completed his degree. Instead he was sunk in deep depression, and terrified of having to return to Bangkok to cremate the corpse of the beloved brother he had killed.

Meanwhile, Thai royalists were split about what to do about Bhumibol. Many favoured revealing the truth about the regicide, so that Bhumibol would have to abdicate and Prince Chumbhotbongs Paribatra would become monarch instead. Others thought the best solution was to try to support the weak and troubled Bhumibol and train him to play his role as a figurehead and protector of elite royalist interests. One way they tried to do this was by arranging his marriage to the feisty Sirikit Kitiyakara, who was much more audacious and bold than the struggling young king.

According to this document from April 1950, Bhumibol had no affection for Sirikit and was trying to avoid returning to Thailand for the cremation. In the end he was persuaded to return, and ironically he was supported by the progressive faction in the Thai government, because they believed he would be easily manipulated. This was true, but the palace and military manipulated him more cleverly than the progressives, and he ended up ruling for 70 years and doing prolonged damage to Thai democracy.

The king and his coups

In September 1957, the notoriously corrupt army chief Sarit Thanarat seized power in a coup, deposing Field Marshal Phibun Songkhram. This was the start of a remarkable palace revival in Thailand, because unlike his predecessor Sarit pretended to respect the monarchy and used royalist propaganda to bolster his dictatorial rule.

The palace has always tried to pretend that Bhumibol was above politics and never played any part in the numerous military coups that have disfigured Thailand’s modern history. But overwhelming evidence — including numerous declassified British and U.S. diplomatic cables — suggest otherwise.

This confidential CIA report from September 1957 says that Bhumibol admitted to US ambassador Max Waldo Bishop that he played an “active role in the coup”.

Bhumibol also stated that he “intended to withdraw from the political arena” after a new government was firmly established.

This proved to be entirely untrue — the coup of September 1957 was the beginning of a royalist resurgence in which the palace gradually established ever greater influence in Thai politics.

Dalai Lama not welcome

In 1959, at the beginning of a Tibetan uprising against Chinese rule, the Dalai Lama fled his country with the help of the CIA and escaped to India, where he formed a government in exile. He began pressing for the United Nations to take action on Tibet, and wanted to visit other countries to help build support for the cause.

But according to this top secret bulletin, King Bhumibol declined to welcome the Dalai Lama in Thailand, because he feared that a visit from a Buddhist leader would undermine his own claim to be the main “defender of the faith”.

A paranoid monarch

One consistent theme in diplomatic and intelligence cables about Bhumibol from several countries was his sense of paranoia. This top secret briefing to the U.S. president in June 1967 seems to share a similar assessment, warning that when the Thai king visited Washington he was likely to exaggerate the threat from communism.

Bhumibol versus democracy

In 1973, a student uprising in Bangkok led to the apparent overthrow of military dictatorship after nearly a quarter of a century. Bhumibol made a public show of support for the students at a decisive moment, and this helped foster a persistent myth — actively promoted by the palace — that he was a “democratic” king.

In fact, Bhumibol was a reactionary figure who never felt comfortable with democracy and who believed that Thailand should be ruled by the royalist elite.

Following the unexpected events of October 1973, Bhumibol quickly became disillusioned with democracy and the palace actively conspired to undermine parliamentary rule.

This led to a savage massacre of student protesters at Thammasat University by ultra-royalist forces in October 1976. Bhumibol’s complicity in the destruction of democracy in this period is well established, but this CIA document from February 1974 is interesting because it suggests that within six months of the student uprising the monarch had already given his permission to crush progressive forces in Thailand if necessary.

Worries over royal succession and political awakening

Even after the withdrawal of US troops from Thailand in the mid-1970s, America continued to consider the kingdom a key Cold War ally, but was perpetually worried that Thais might be growing more receptive to other ideas. There were also concerns about the widely despised successor to the throne, Crown Prince Maha Vajiralongkorn.

An intelligence assessment by several US agencies in November 1981 explicitly raised worries about royal succession as a destabilising factor in Thailand, stating:

The current monarch’s great popularity and personal qualities enable him to play a key role in moderating national crises. The lack of an equally capable successor, however, suggests that the power of the monarchy and its stabilizing influence will decline with succession. Moreover, the independence of the Palace from the military is likely to decrease. and the Army‘s political power will probably grow despite the wishes of certain junior officers that the military remain aloof from politics.

The analysis also presciently forecast that increasing political engagement among ordinary Thais would become a significantly destabilising factor for the sclerotic Thai elite and their shaky status quo from the 1990s onwards.

Prem and the prince

Between 1980 and 1988 Thailand was a faux-democracy in which royalist general Prem Tinsulanonda served as prime minister on behalf of Bhumibol’s faction among the royalist elite. Meanwhile, the king’s marriage to Queen Sirikit was unravelling, and army factionalism was rife. Sirikit became close to generals who wanted to replace Prem, and also sought to pressure Bhumibol to abdicate in favour of Vajiralongkorn, who had his own favourites among the political and military elite.

In April 1984, several US intelligence agencies produced a secret joint report on Prem’s political prospects. The report mentions that Vajiralongkorn was regarded as erratic and irresponsible, and that some diplomats believed the king wanted Sirindhorn to become the next monarch instead.

The report also noted that Vajiralongkorn supported a right-wing rival of Prem. This was notorious ultranationalist politician Samak Sundaravej. Meanwhile, Sirikit had a favourite of her own — the ambitious General Arthit Kamlang-ek.

These factors destabilised the country throughout the period of “Premocracy”

The “Double 9” coup of 1985

On September 9, 1985, a group of military officers linked to a faction known as the “Young Turks” tried to seize power in an abortive uprising that was quickly suppressed. One suspected reason for the collapse of the attempted coup was that senior military officers favoured by Sirikit and Vajiralongkorn initially promised their support but panicked and backed out at the last minute.

The coup was suppressed by forces loyal to General Chavalit Yongchaiyudh. Five civilians were killed during the brief fighting, including two foreign journalists, Neil Davis and Bill Latch of NBC. The CIA analysis of the abortive coup is heavily redacted but nevertheless still useful.

One of the interesting elements of the analysis is that it explicitly discusses the splits in the royal family and their impact on events. The analysis mentions that Sirikit supported General Pichit Kullavanij, a rival to Prem and might a support a coup by him.

The uncertain kingdom

In February 1987, combined U.S. intelligence agencies produced yet another report fretting that “Thailand’s nagging political and economic problems — and expected changes in leadership — suggest that this important US ally may be headed for a period of uncertainty that could be detrimental to US interests in Southeast Asia.”

They entitled it Thailand: The Uncertain Kingdom.

In particular they were concerned that Bhumibol might soon abdicate, or that Prem would step down, and this would lead to “worrisome succession prospects”.

Nature first, protocol second

By 1986, pressure from Sirikit and her faction for Bhumibol to abdicate had become intense. The monarch shocked the nation on his 59th birthday in December that year by hinting that he would soon step aside to make way for Vajiralongkorn to rule Thailand.

“The water of the Chao Phraya must flow on, and the water that flows on will be replaced. In our lifetime, we just perform our duties. When we retire, somebody else will replace us,” Bhumibol intoned. “One cannot stick to a single task forever. One day we will grow old and die.”

This caused panic among the more liberal elements of the royalist elite, who began desperately trying to prevent Vajiralongkorn taking over. In the end it was Vajiralongkorn himself who did the most to sabotage an early succession, with a spectacular meltdown during an official visit to Japan in September 1987. Furious that his mistress Yuvathida Polpraserth had not been allowed to accompany him for reasons of protocol, Vajiralongkorn behaved petulantly throughout the trip, and eventually cut it short three days early, claiming he had been shown an unacceptable level of disrespect.

One of the incidents that apparently enraged the crown prince was that at one stage his Japanese chauffeur had to stop the car to pee en route to an official engagement.

Here is a CIA summary of the debacle. Note the handwritten comment that a U.S. official added to the document: “Nature first, protocol second.”

A gathering of spooks

The precursor of the CIA was the Office of Strategic Services, or OSS, formed in 1942 under the leadership of William “Wild Bill” Donovan. The organisation had intimate links to Thailand from the start, and helped to create the “Free Thai” movement that fought the Japanese-allied government in Bangkok during World War Two.

Alexander MacDonald, founder of the Bangkok Post newspaper, was an OSS agent during the war and gifted King Ananda Mahidol the Colt .45 pistol that killed the 20-year-old monarch in 1946 while he was playing with Bhumibol in his bedroom.

Another agent was Willis Bird, who married into the family of Siddhi Savetsila (descended from British consul Henry Alabaster and the highly influential Bunnag family who were originally of Persian origin). This CIA cable from 1949 discusses efforts by the Thai military to secretly purchase weapons via Bird.

In October 1987, around 70 former OSS agents and their spouses held a reunion meeting in Bangkok. According to news reports compiled by the CIA, their most hospitable host was Siddhi Savetsila. Willis Bird, now in a wheelchair, was there too.

The assembled spies also had a special audience with King Bhumibol Adulyadej at Chitralada Palace.

Inappropriate behaviour

Bhumibol marked his 60th birthday in December 1987. Compounding the embarrassment of the crown prince’s calamitous visit to Japan, the king’s birthday was marred by several anonymous leaflets that denounced the behaviour of Vajiralongkorn and his mother Sirikit.

This episode has been covered in detail by journalist Paul Handley in his seminal biography of Bhumibol, The King Never Smiles. As Handley explains (and as the CIA apparently failed to realise) the leaflets were actually sponsored by members of the extended royal family — the relatives of Vajiralongkorn’s abandoned first wife Soamsawali.

I discuss this episode in more detail in my recent analysis of royal succession dynamics in Thailand.

That’s all for this edition. I hope you found it useful. On Friday, I’ll be publishing another original article for paying subscribers. Thanks for reading!

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Sometime in the early 1970s, Sir Arthur James de la Mare, Britain’s ambassador to Thailand, and his wife were at a lunch at the Klai Kangwon Palace in Hua Hin with King Bhumibol Adulyadej, Queen Sirikit Kitiyakara, and the lord mayors of Bangkok and London. Klai Kangwon, which means “far from worries” in English, was commissioned by King Prajadhipok, Rama VII, in 1926 as a summer palace for the royals, and completed in 1933.

In his valedictory despatch upon leaving his post in Bangkok and retiring from the British foreign service in November 1973, de la Mare recounted an exchange with the king during lunch.

According to de la Mare, Bhumibol told the assembled guests that Bangkok stank.

The Scene: The King of Thailand's summer palace at Hua Hin. Their Majesties, the then Lord Mayor of London and Lady Studd, the Lord Mayor of Bangkok and my wife and I are seated round the luncheon-table.

The King (from across the table): “Well, Your Excellency, what do you think of Bangkok?”

Myself: "Your Majesty, it was not entirely new to me when I came to take up my post, but I know it a lot better now and I like it very much."

The King: “You are too polite. Tell me what you really think. Never mind about the Lord Mayor [of Bangkok]; he doesn't understand English anyway.”

Myself: “Well … er … Your Majesty...”

The King: “I know, I know. I won't try to embarrass you. I'll tell you what I think of Bangkok. It stinks.”

When the despatch was declassified in 2004 in line with the standard practice in Britain that most documents should be available in the National Archives at Kew on the outskirts of London from 30 years after publication, this first paragraph was deemed so sensitive that it remained censored for another decade. The full cable only became available in 2014.

In his despatch, the ambassador wholeheartedly endorsed the king’s opinion:

It does. Decayed garbage left for months on the side of the roads; stagnant canals that serve both as cesspools and as the dumping ground for dead dogs; buses and lorries that belch uncontrolled clouds of diesel fumes; scarcely a pavement without potholes and open manholes to break the legs of the unwary; bag-snatchers in every block; assault and violence a way of life; prostitution and every form of natural and unnatural vice on a scale astonishing even in Asia; a city of 4 million with only one park, and that littered with refuse and infested by thieves; unplanned hideous ribbon development; no proper drainage, so that in the rainy season large areas of the city remain flooded for weeks on end; and the whole set in a flat mournful plain without even a hillock in sight for a 100 miles in any direction: this is Bangkok, the vaunted Venice of the East. A small section, the old city with its palaces and temples, retains some of its oriental charm, but it is but a poor compensation for those who have to live in this ‘improved’ latter-day version of Sodom and Gomorrah.

In an article a few days ago, “Gazelles and butterflies”, I shared the valedictory despatch of a predecessor of de la Mare, Sir Anthony Rumbold, who opined in 1967 that “Thais are as difficult to understand as other orientals” and the “the general level of intelligence of the Thais is rather low”.

As I wrote in that article, as late as the 1960s most senior British diplomats had been educated at Eton and Oxford and were imbued with the prejudices and chauvinism common among the ruling class of a country that had been a mighty empire when they were born and was now an increasingly insignificant medium-sized island.

For centuries, until the practice was stopped on the orders of the government in 2006, there was a tradition in the British foreign service for ambassadors about to depart their posting in a country to write a so-called valedictory despatch, in which they threw all diplomatic niceties to the wind and gave their uncensored opinions on the nation they were leaving and the character of the local population.

Most ambassadors, many of whom liked to consider themselves superb prose stylists, devoted a great deal of time and thought to their valedictory despatches. The ability to write a compelling final despatch was a status symbol for senior diplomats.

By the 1970s, Britain’s foreign service was slowly becoming more diverse. Arthur de la Mare was born into a farming family in the prosperous island of Jersey, off the south coast of the British mainland, in February 1914, and grew up speaking the local patois Jèrriais, a variation of the Norman dialect which shares roots with French. You can listen to a reading of an article de la Mare wrote in the patois here:

He was educated at the fee-paying Victoria College in Jersey and won a scholarship to Pembroke College, Cambridge, where he gained a double first in modern languages. So although he was Oxbridge-educated and from a relatively wealthy background, he was a bit different from the men who dominated British ambassadorial posts in previous decades.

He joined the foreign service in 1936 and was posted to Tokyo as vice-consul. In 1938 the consul general in Seoul fell ill and went back to Britain so de la Mare was sent there to cover for him as acting consul general. As J. E. Hoare wrote in his book Embassies of the East:

To make matters worse, de la Mare found on arrival in Seoul that he was to be acting everything else as well as consul-general, for the vice-consul promptly left on retirement. De la Mare had no consular training at that stage, but at least by his own account seems to have coped. His ability to speak Japanese gave him some advantage over his small number of consular colleagues, none of whom knew the language.

The acting consul said conditions in the residential buildings in the embassy compound were far from ideal, according to Hoare:

Heating was expensive and not very efficient; the long periods when the main residential buildings were not in use meant that they quickly deteriorated. De la Mare complained of huge gaps between window frames and walls in the number two house, through which the Siberian wind whistled. He also claimed that when Derwent Kermode and his wife arrived to take over from him in 1939 that the condition of the number one house, which by then had been left empty and unheated for four or five months over the winter, was such that Mrs Kermode’s “consumption of gin and cigarettes, already assuring her of a very creditable batting average, sent her soaring into the Guinness Book of Records”.

De la Mare returned to Tokyo in 1939, and was briefly interned following Japan’s entry into World War Two in December 1941. Later postings included San Francisco, Tokyo again, Washington, Kabul as ambassador to Afghanistan and Singapore as high commissioner. He also spent time in London as head of the Far Eastern department of the Foreign Office, from 1960 to 1963. His posting as ambassador to Thailand, which began in 1970, was his final job in the foreign service before retirement.

After his very uncomplimentary description of Bangkok in his valedictory despatch, de la Mare made a similar point to Rumbold six years earlier about the dominant role of Bangkok in the kingdom:

But why do I begin this farewell despatch from a post which in spite of its many frustrations I have greatly enjoyed with so uncomplimentary a description of its capital city? I have often had occasion to remind London that Bangkok is not Thailand, nor Thailand Bangkok. That is true, but most Thais do not realise it. Bangkok to them is not only all that counts in their country, it is all that counts in the world.

There are reasons for this. There are here no Manchesters, Birminghams or Liverpools to share the industrial and commercial loads with the capital. The two Thai towns next largest to Bangkok, Chiang Mai in the North and Haad Yai in the South, though both growing rapidly are country villages by comparison. If it was ever true that a man who is tired of London is tired of life it is equally true that a Thai who given the choice prefers to live outside Bangkok is looked upon as an eccentric. I have often asked Thai friends why when they retire they do not go to live in more pleasant and salubrious areas such as Chiang Mai or Songkhla. The question astonishes them: “But we couldn't live anywhere but in Bangkok!” Civil servants or business officials sent to man posts in the provinces regard it as demotion and as loss of face. There are practical objections too: if they have children to educate all the “good”schools are in Bangkok, and the provincial universities though by no means bad and constantly improving are still looked down upon as what the Americans used to call “cow-colleges”.

Continuing his discussion of Bangkok, de la Mare correctly noted that in the decades after World War Two, Thailand became a military vassal of the United States and then a location for Japanese economic outsourcing. He repeats the common claim that Siam was never colonised, but this is not strictly true — after the Bowring Treaty of 1853, and until World War Two, the kingdom was effectively a semi-colony of Britain.

For all its faults it is a cosmopolitan city. In the days of steamships it was a backwater, for the main ocean-going lines bypassed it, but air traffic has trans- formed it into the hub of South East Asia: almost all routes to the Far East and beyond and to Australia and New Zealand transit here. Bangkok is the head- quarters of SEATO, as of ECAFE and various other UN offshoots. Compared with neighbouring capitals-Rangoon, Vientiane, Phnom Penh, Kuala Lumpur- it is the "big city". Its status reflects the status of Thailand in South East Asia. By a series of fortunate accidents (which however the Thais attribute to their own skilful diplomacy) Siam was the only country in the area which retained its independence during the colonial era; true it has since become the military client of the US and the economic vassal of Japan and in that sense is now less genuinely independent than say Burma, but like other people including ourselves the Thais tend to gauge their status by the past rather than by the present. Inordinately vain and race conscious by nature they look upon themselves as the élite of South East Asia.

After describing the Thais as inordinately “vain and race conscious by nature”, de la Mare then began a diatribe in which he described Thais as indolent, feckless, superficial and shackled by social hierarchy:

After 37 years’ acquaintance with them and the last three in their own front yard I cannot say that I find their pretensions entirely justified. Except for those who have Chinese blood they are indolent and feckless. Their charm is proverbial, but it is often no more than a polite pose and I am quite sure that of all the Asians of various nationalities whom my wife and I have known and whom we call friends it is the Thais who will most quickly forget us. Trying to determine whether a Thai really means what he says is one of the most difficult tasks I have encountered in my diplomatic life. And, charming and friendly as they are, to do business with them is a constant frustration. They cannot make up their mind; everything has to be referred to a higher authority; and even the highest authority of all, the King, is so shackled by protocol and precedent that though he will speak his mind with refreshing directness he will seldom intervene even in situations which only he can resolve.

The ambassador devoted several paragraphs in his despatch to the fall of the “three tyrants” — Thanom Kittikachorn, Praphas Charusathien and Narong Kittikachorn — in October 1973:

I have attempted elsewhere to describe Thailand's October Revolution and its causes. They were plain enough to see — a government inefficient, corrupt and unpopular, unable to cope with the people’s economic ills and blind to their social and political aspirations; men, Prapass especially, who thought that the medals on their chest adequately camouflaged their hollow interior; vain men, be-ringed and be-jewelled like courtesans…

He argued that Thanam was a decent man, undermined by the excesses of his sidekick Prapass, his son Narong, and his wife, who had an “insatiable greed for wealth”.

De la Mare then returned to “the subject of the Thai way”:

Some two years ago I bethought myself that I would address you on the subject of the Thai way, and got as far as setting pen to paper. But after wrestling for some weeks with a draft I abandoned the project, deeming it prudent not to give you further cause to doubt my sanity. But since it is now immaterial whether my superiors consider me better fitted for a lunatic asylum than for a diplomatic post I shall try to describe the Thai way as it has been vouchsafed and revealed to me.

He began with some attempted humour about the Thai language:

First the idiom. If I were a Thai official in the presence of my superior I would stand at deferential attention while he spoke, then when he had finished would bend low and hiss in his ear the one word: “Crap!” For in Thai this basic four-letter word is not only the appropriate but the mandatory expression of total submission. And, on another plane, what can one make of a language where the word for dentist is “more fun” or where, at least to the foreign ear, the words for “near” and “far” are exactly the same?

The jokes didn’t really hit the mark. The Thai politeness particle ครับ is not really pronounced like the English expletive crap, and it does not denote total submission. Laughing about the word for dentist is a bit lame. De la Mare did have a point though that for those not attuned to Thai linguistic tones, the words for near and far do sound pretty similar.

He then turned to Thai punctuality, or the lack thereof:

But why not? Distance and proximity are matters of the mind, and so is time. Shortly after my arrival here I paid a courtesy call on a senior Minister. I was advised that it should take only 15–20 minutes to get to his office but that as traffic was unpredictable I should allow 30. I did, and arrived at the Ministry flustered and embarrassed 35 minutes late. The Minister heard my apologies with blank astonishment. “But my dear Ambassador, it’s true that in principle our appointment was for four o’clock but it is only four thirty-five and I didn’t expect you until about now.” And then as he remembered my British provenance his eyes twinkled and he added: “If I may offer a word of advice to you as a newcomer don’t worry about punctuality. It is a British fetish but we Thais don’t suffer from it.”

Another paragraph was devoted to the many possible meanings when Thais say yes to something:

So here is there and near is far and a watch merely an ornamental bauble. There are indeed separate and distinct expressions for “yes” and “no” but since it is impolite to use the latter the former is used for both. It is then up to the person addressed to decide whether yes is to be interpreted as a flat no or as a no which he may convert into a yes by putting his request in another form or to a higher authority. But usually it means that his request will receive favourable consideration, which in turn means that no action will be taken upon it. If you invite a Thai to dinner and he accepts you must not deduce therefrom that he will be there, for by accepting he has done you a courtesy; he has thus transferred the obligation from himself to you and is therefore under no necessity to turn up. If you know him well enough to remonstrate he will be taken aback: “But I accepted, didn’t I?” It is then no good replying: “Yes, mate, so you did, and that’s why I expected you”. for he will go away confirmed in his assurance that the thought-processes of the farang are quite beyond comprehension.

The despatch argues that this behaviour derives from a desire to avoid confrontation, which is an aspect of “the Thai way”:

It shuns confrontation, for compromise avoids humiliation and loss of face. Regard for the opponent's face springs from no charitable motive, for charity is not a Thai virtue, but from considerations of self-interest, for who can tell when fate may turn the tables and put you in the weaker position? If the Thais were Christians the Christian precept that they would best understand is to do unto others as you would that they should do unto you. For tomorrow or next week or next year or in the hereafter you may need a favour from them.

Foreign observers of Thailand often say Thais avoid confrontation, but as Thais themselves know, this is not really true. Most foreigners who spend a lot of time among Thais, and those who have some knowledge of Thai history, would also consider it a strange comment.

It would be more accurate to say that social interactions in Thailand are heavily influenced by relative rank in the social hierarchy. A Thai pooyai would not think twice about being rude to a social inferior, but it would be extremely rare for somebody to confront somebody of higher status. The position of foreigners in Thailand is ambiguous because in many cases Thai’s can’t easily figure out their place in the hierarchy. A foreign ambassador is clearly somebody of status, but isn’t Thai, so a common reaction would be to be polite to them while not taking them particularly seriously. This may be why de la Mare formed his opinion on Thai avoidance of confrontation.

De la Mare ended his the observations in his despatch by claiming, as Rumbold had done, that westerners could never really understand Asians. It was a curious comment from somebody whose career had been mainly devoted to diplomacy in Asia, as he himself acknowledged:

And so I take leave of this confused and confusing country and of these charming, irritating, frustrating and endearing people. They have confirmed what my long association with Asia had already taught me— that no Westerner will ever really understand the Oriental. I now know more about him but know him no better than I did in 1936 when I left London for my first post in Tokyo. Is this an admission of failure? I think not, but rather an acceptance of fact. Nor does it betoken dissatisfaction, for if I could choose my diplomatic career anew I would still wish it to lie in Asia.

You can view and download de la Mare’s full despatch here:

Arthur de la Mare valedictory despatch

12.1MB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download

After he retired, de la Mare spent several years living in Surrey before returning to Jersey for the final years of his life. He died on December 15, 1994

In an obituary in the journal Asian Affairs, British diplomat Michael Wilford, who had been ambassador to Japan from 1975 to 1980, wrote:

His was a career of great diversity, and he was a man of strong likes and dislikes, never hesitating to show his feelings. He earned a reputation in the Service as a man of character… His memoirs, published shortly before his death, were full of that impish charm which so delighted his friends.

On my next visit to the National Archives in Kew, I’ll look up more valedictory despatches from past ambassadors to Bangkok to share here on Secret Siam.

But it will not be until 2089 that a full version of one of them — the despatch from Derek Tonkin on September 11, 1989 — can be viewed. Tonkin’s despatch was partially declassified in 2019 in accordance with the 30-year-rule but some passages were censored for a full century. This suggests that they contained some very frank comments about King Bhumibol and the future of the Thai monarchy, although because he was not just leaving Bangkok but also retiring from the foreign service, they may also have continued observations and criticisms of British diplomacy that were considered sensitive.

Tonkin did share a snippet of the cover note attached to his despatch by the head of the Southeast Asia desk at the Foreign Office in London.

“Worth waiting for!” Tonkin told me, in a tweet.

All of Thailand…

Read more

A couple of months ago I published an article called “Pretty in pink” about King Vajiralongkorn’s harem and the latest developments in his personal life.

It was a tale of parachuting concubines, cryptic cartoons, symbolic silver heart-shaped pendants, and a mysterious woman identified by the colour pink and the code number 002.

Since then, things have got even stranger.

The biggest bombshell is the reappearance of Vajiralongkorn’s royal noble consort Sineenat “Koi” Bilaskalayani who had not made a public appearance for more than two-and-a-half years. It has also emerged that the king has bestowed a special new surname not just on his concubine Oranong, as I reported in my previous article, but also on other new favourites. And all of this may have a connection with Queen Suthida taking part in a yachting race in Mallorca.

This saga is still unfolding, and there is plenty we don’t yet know, but here’s my summary and analysis of the latest news. Many thanks to the team at anonymous Facebook page สมเด็จพระจักรพรรดินีศรีศศิเฌอปรางวัชรสุภางควดี who first broke several key elements of this story.

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I. Purge of a lifetime

Vajiralongkorn Bodindradebayavarangkun seems an unlikely saint.

Thailand’s monarch is notorious for his violence, cruelty, greed and abuse of women. He has been widely loathed and feared in Thailand for decades.

In an article last year, American journalist Paul Handley, the author of the best biography of previous monarch Bhumibol Adulyadej yet published, wrote about the widespread concerns in past decades in Thailand about Vajiralongkorn becoming king:

Vajiralongkorn’s record as king-in-waiting was long a source of concern for royal-watchers. Mostly known to the people by tales spread by word-of-mouth, he was understood already in the 1980s to be abusive of his power, a serial womanizer, deeply vengeful, and violent, possibly homicidally so.

This is actually a generous understatement. We don’t know if Vajiralongkorn has ever killed anybody with his own hands, but we know he has ordered the murder of more than a dozen people, including ten activists critical of the monarchy who were abducted in other Southeast Asian countries where they were living in exile, and who I wrote about in my article “Remembering the disappeared”.

We know he has a personal prison, unsupervised by the authorities, in which he locks up people who have displeased him, at Thaweewattana Palace where there is also a brutal training camp that soldiers get sent to for punishment. We know he enjoys watching videos of soldiers and royal servants being beaten and tortured. My article “Beware the black ribbon” has more details.

We know he’s been married four times, and treated his three previous wives with gratuitous cruelty after he abandoned them. We know he’s been a sexual predator for decades, targeting the attractive daughters of aristocratic Thais before pivoting to a harem of multiple women who serve him full-time, first in Thailand and then, after he relocated to Germany in 2007, in Bavaria. I’ve written about this in multiple articles, most recently “Pretty in pink”.

We know that despite his pretence of following the “sufficiency economy” philosophy espoused by his father Bhumibol, he’s a profligate libertine with three private Boeing 737 planes for his personal use, and another 737 parked in the grounds of Amphon Sathan Palace as a garden ornament. My article “The strange story of why King Vajiralongkorn has a Boeing 737 as a garden ornament” tells that tale in detail.

For nearly a decade he has permanently rented the 95-room four star Grand Hotel Sonnenbichl in the gorgeous Bavarian resort town of Garmisch-Partenkirchen for himself and his harem, and he also rented an entire floor of one of the two wings of the airport hotel in Munich. He took personal possession of the huge Thai royal fortune, worth at least $70 billion. You can read a detailed analysis of his wealth in “Royal riches”.

This is all very awkward for the palace because a crucial part of the mythology of monarchy in Thailand is that the king is a Buddhist dhammarājā whose right to reign is founded upon his immense virtue.

The Thai concept of ธรรม, or dhamma, encompasses the teachings of Buddha, the true nature of existence, and ethical conduct. Dhamma is the path of enlightenment that leads to the end of suffering and the attainment of nirvana.

The monarch’s role is to purify the kingdom, through religious rituals, symbolic acts, moral leadership, removing corruption, and bringing wisdom to the people to take them closer to nirvana.

The anthropologist Christine Gray explained the importance of purification in her brilliant 1986 PhD thesis “Thailand: The Soteriological State in the 1970s”:

The king's performance and purification of ritual was and is central to the ruling process for two reasons. First, royal ritual performances are acts of purification that enhance the king's mental purity and therefore heighten his powers of interpretation. Second, Buddhist rituals were and remain the most potent media of communication in Thai society. They are a "language of images" (chapter 18) through which new values and standards of conduct are conveyed to the general populace. In accordance with indigenous concepts of meaning, the king transforms new principles of order into social practice by incorporating them into the royal ritual repertoire.

But as Handley wrote in The King Never Smiles in 2006, Vajiralongkorn’s “capacity to lead gives rise to great worries”:

Neither at the level of the traditional Buddhist dhammaraja kingship nor as a modern head of state has Vajiralongkorn displayed proficiency. In Buddhist kingship, power essentially derives from the king's own spiritual achievements, which are personal and ultimately transitory… His performance of rituals is sparing and perfunctory. He isn’t believed to have explored the mysteries of the dhamma and his own soul. Instead he is seen as still caught in the world of desire and pleasure, seeking out young women to entertain him. And he remains given to violent outbursts.

After he became king in 2016, Vajiralongkorn moved quickly to stamp his authority on the sangha, the Thai Buddhist monkhood. He intervened in 2016 to get the junta to change the Sangha Act to give him the power to select the supreme patriarch, which he did in early 2017, ending a succession struggle that had dragged on for four years since the previous incumbent died.

Shortly afterwards, on his orders, thousands of police and military and officials from the Department of Special Investigation besieged the giant golden-domed flying-saucer-shaped Dhammakaya temple north of Bangkok to try to seize its abbot, Phra Dhammajayo, who was accused of money laundering, forest encroachment, and embezzlement.

In 2018 the junta passed a new Sangha Act that gave the king the power to appoint or fire senior monks. He duly exercised this power by removing a large number of monks he distrusted.

“This is the purge of a lifetime,” said Chulalongkorn University lecturer Khemthong Tonsakulrungruang. “Never have there been such high-profile arrests and so many prominent monks falling from grace.”

These interventions were intended to strengthen Vajiralongkorn’s position and neutralise any threat from the Dhammakaya sect that was regarded as allied with Thaksin Shinawatra and the Red Shirt movement. As Tomas Larsson of the University of Cambridge explained in a 2020 article in The Journal of Contemporary Asia:

Vajiralongkorn’s reign has brought about significant change to sangha–state relations. In the new reign, greater emphasis is placed on institutional Buddhism as a source of legitimation than had been the case during the final decades of Bhumibol’s reign. In the new reign, the monarchy has also established greater direct control over the sangha, and demonstrated a much greater willingness to intervene, than was the case in the last decades of Bhumibol’s reign. This has manifested in the form of significant amendments to laws governing the relationship between sangha and state, an unprecedented purge of Buddhist monks deemed corrupt or inappropriately “political” and a more general disciplining of Buddhist monks and laypersons. These developments can be understood, in part, as a concerted effort to “purify” Thai Buddhism ahead of the May 2019 royal coronation, in which the Buddhist ecclesiastical hierarchy was employed to sacralise the new king and his reign. In a longer- term perspective, they represent an attempt to restore Buddhism to its historic role as a central pillar of political legitimation in the political system. Moreover, sangha reform and sangha purification was the first step in a wider post-Bhumibol drive to strengthen and expand the neo-traditionalist and absolutist features of Thailand’s monarchical institution, thus concentrating power in Vajiralongkorn’s hands.

During the early years of his reign, Vajiralongkorn’s focus on the sangha did not indicate any deeper interest in acquiring Buddhist wisdom. His interventions were pragmatic and political, aimed at bolstering his authority, eliminating potential threats, and diverting attention from his own wayward behaviour. But they also were also intended to give the impression he was serious about purifying the sangha, a necessary task for a monarch who wanted to be seen as a dhammarājā.

There was strong support in Thailand for reforming the corrupt and sclerotic sangha, and pretending to be a firm but fair monarch determined to put Thai Buddhism back on a righteous path allowed Vajiralongkorn to mitigate widespread doubts about his own ethical credentials.

Vajiralongkorn is a highly insecure monarch who is well aware that millions of Thais regard him as morally unfit to be king. So after the royal succession one of his main priorities was to deal with this danger. As Larsson explains:

The sangha’s submissiveness in relation to the new reign can be seen also in an “invented tradition” that was added to the monastic ritual calendar in 2018 and 2019. Monks in every district across the country, as well as monks in Thai temples overseas, gathered at 16:00 on the 28th day of every month — the date of Vajiralongkorn’s birth — to chant Buddhist prayers in celebration of the king…

Among the Pali prayers that were recited was a newly composed one that glorifies Vajiralongkorn as a king of the entire Thai people … who is full of the ten royal virtues, professes the Buddhist faith and is the supreme defender of religion, and is devoted to the happiness and welfare of the people…

The prayer highlights important features of the pre-modern political imagination that underpins the Thai ideology of Buddhist kingship. The term used for “the people” in the Thai-language translation of the prayer is one which carries no connotation of political citizenship (prachachon or ratsadon)… In addition, reference is made to the Siamese kingdom (ratchanachak siam) rather than to the nation-state Thailand (prathet thai). Similar prayer ceremonies that also involve Buddhist laypersons — led by Prime Minister Prayuth — have been arranged at regular but less frequent intervals. They are designed to provide religious legitimacy for the new king and to provide opportunities for members of the sangha, the military and the civil service to ostentatiously demonstrate fealty to Buddhist values and to their new monarch – the two pillars of the socio-political order.

Vajiralongkorn’s pretence of being a Buddhist sage and moral exemplar unravelled further in 2020 when more details emerged of his lifestyle at the luxury Grand Hotel Sonnenbichl in the Bavarian town of Garmisch-Partenkirchen, where he was living up with his main mistress Sineenat “Koi” Bilaskalayani and more than 20 concubines. He hardly ever bothered to visit Thailand, usually staying for less than 24 hours when he had to return for an essential ceremony, before flying back to Germany on a Boeing 777 commandeered from Thai Airways.

He had never shown any interest in learning about dhamma and Buddhism. He was too busy having orgies with his harem, while his wife Suthida was banished to Switzerland. You can read about her life there in my article “Angel Mountain”.

During 2020, the palace was shocked by unprecedented mass protests calling for reform of the monarchy. By now it was widely known that Vajiralongkorn was living in Bavaria with Sineenat and his harem, a fact that protesters regularly referenced. Many traditional royalists had also become disgusted by Vajiralongkorn’s behaviour, believing that he was destroying faith in the monarchy.

II. Sticking gold on the back of a Buddha

During 2021, the palace propaganda machine launched a fightback. Their audacious plan was to pretend that Vajiralongkorn was actually a saintly monarch, a dhammarājā just like his father Bhumibol had been said to be, but that he was just too modest to publicise his great virtue.

This tale was first told in May 2021 by extremist royal Chulcherm Yugala on his Facebook page, which he frequently uses to denounce those who want reform of the monarchy. Chulcherm is a frenemy of Vajiralongkorn because if the Mahidol line of the Chakri dynasty has no heir who meets the rules of the Palace Law on Succession, which seems increasingly likely, then the Yugala clan is next in line.

Chulcherm volubly supports Vajiralongkorn on social media, to the dismay of most of his relatives, because he is desperate to try to reverse the escalating unpopularity of the palace.

Chulcherm shared comments from a monk called Kom Apivaro, from the forest monastery Wat Pa Dhammakhiri in Nakhon Ratchasima province, who claimed to have visited Amphorn Sathan Palace numerous times to assist with the king’s daily meditation. The monastery has many wealthy patrons, including the Bhirombhakdi beer dynasty, and privy council chief Surayud Chulanont.

According to Chulcherm, Kom Apiravo said Vajiralongkorn meditated for at least an hour every day, sometimes two, and quoted the king as saying:

Both tranquility (samatha) and insight (vipassana) meditation are very beneficial. They help me a lot. I meditate every day. When you give dhamma talks, I reflect on the teachings as if a light is shining, guiding me to follow. I am always mindful and do not let my mind wander. Even when sitting here, my mindfulness is clearly here, not extending beyond this point. My mind contemplates the dhamma as taught. I meditate every day and feel that if I miss a day, something feels lacking.

Kom Apivaro claimed he had asked permission to share details of Vajiralongkorn’s devotion to dhamma, and the king allegedly replied:

It’s up to you, teacher, but as for me, it’s okay. I don’t want to be a hero. I prefer to work behind the scenes, helping others quietly.

The monk also said Vajiralongkorn was studying the ancient Pali language and Buddhist scriptures:

His Majesty has a philosophical vision regarding the path of revival and reform: “like a lotus emerging from the mud,” blooming anew with awareness and joy.

This makes the current atmosphere of Amphon Palace like a home, university, town hall, hospital, orphanage, experimental field, sports ground, training camp, and temple.

A day after Chulcherm’s post, Kom Apivaro was interviewed on Thai radio and told the same story. He said:

I have been serving his majesty since January, and it’s been almost half a year now. Throughout this period, I have continually observed that his majesty possesses great strength, both physically and mentally. Whatever he desires to study, he is determined to learn it thoroughly and deeply. However, by nature, his majesty prefers to do things quietly, working behind the scenes without seeking public recognition. As a result, there is very little information available about him, which may lead to misunderstandings or suspicions among the public, which is natural for people.

Like the king’s concubines, Kom Apivaro was given a new name by Vajiralongkorn — วชิรญาณโกศล, or Vajirayankosol.

• vajira วชิร = Vajiralongkorn

• yana ญาณ = knowledge

• kosol โกศล = wise

This was the start of the palace’s attempts to pretend that Vajiralongkorn was a saintly monarch who didn’t want to draw attention to his immense virtue, characterised by the Thai phrase ปิดทองหลังพระ, which literally means “sticking gold on the back of the Buddha”, and is used to describe somebody who does good deeds privately rather than ostentatiously.

In October 2022, Vajiralongkorn’s son Dipangkorn visited the monk at Wat Pa Dhammakhiri, allegedly to make merit and discuss dhamma.

Suddenly, in May 2023, Kom Apivaro was disrobed and charged by police for embezzling temple funds and sexual misconduct. So was the abbot of the temple. It’s not clear what happened but it may have been a result of one of Vajiralongkorn’s frequent mood changes and rages, or it may have been due to rivalry and backstabbing among monks to be the favourite cleric of the king.

Chulcherm’s Facebook post was the start of the myth that Vajiralongkorn was a devout Buddhist who meditated and contemplated dhamma daily, and that this was the reason for his frequent failure to appear in public for weeks or months on end.

In June 2021, a sermon by Suttham Sudhammo from the Wat Pa Ban Tat forest temple in Udon Thani was posted on YouTube. The monk described meeting Vajiralongkorn in Bangkok, and the video included a photo of the king and his royal noble consort Sineenat, wearing matching tracksuits.

From June 29 to July 1 in 2021, Palat Mongkhonwat aka Supol Khantiplo, abbot of Wat Thep Chetiyachan in Chiang Rai province, another forest temple, came to Bangkok along with two other monks as a guest of Vajiralongkorn, to meditate together. A week later he was also given a royal name — ปัญญาวชิโรดม, or Panyavajirodom.

• panya ปัญญา = wisdom

• vajira วชิร = Vajiralongkorn

• udom อุดม = exalted

A photograph was released online showing Vajiralongkorn and Sineenat, again wearing matching tracksuits, meeting the abbot.

“He was very smart, very smart in his studies,” the abbot said.

Another monk invited to meet Vajiralongkorn and Sineenat was Luang Poo Tong Inn, of Wat Pa Koong in Roi Et, who is supposedly the spiritual leader of 151 temples including one in Surrey, England.

Afterwards, he was also given a royally bestowed name.

III. All aboard the ferry to nirvana

It was clear by now that Vajiralongkorn was trying to purify his debased and tarnished reputation via strategic leaks of information intended to suggest he was a secretive saint.

By the start of 2024, the king had a new favourite monk, Phra Jaruwanno Bhikkhu aka Ajahn Ton, director of the Doi Dhammanava Educational Institute in a forest north of Chiang Rai.

Ajahn Ton has distilled his understanding of Buddhist teachings into a set of lessons he calls dhammanava which literally means “dhamma boat”, to convey the idea that the teachings of Buddha (dhamma) can help people cross the metaphorical ocean of worldly suffering and ignorance that characterises the repeated cycle of life, death and rebirth (samsara) to attain wisdom and peace on the opposite shore (nirvana).

In March 2024, Vajiralongkorn announced at the Temple of the Emerald Buddha that he was on a mission to spread the wisdom he had learned about dhammanava, and to achieve this he had drawn some doodles, which would be printed in four books which would be distributed all over the kingdom, to temples, schools, prisons and various other institutions.

Subscribers to Secret Siam will know I have regularly discussed the king’s childish cartoons, usually in relation to the clues they provide about his complex love life. However, now he had found a new use for his doodling — spreading Buddhist wisdom and helping Thais reach nirvana.

The initiative was called ฉบับธรรมนาวา “วัง” which means “dhammanava ‘palace’ edition”.

Cartoons released by the palace showed a boat of smiling happy people, with a bespectacled monk at the front, being pulled to a paradise island by an elephant with a crab on its back, with the spires of the Grand Palace and Temple of the Emerald Buddha in the background.

The caption of this image is:

The only refuge is the triple gem. The Buddha is the one who shows the way. The dhamma is the path to walk. The sangha are those who walk that path. The royal boat of dhamma leads people… to the shore of liberation.

The phrase “triple gem” refers to Buddha, dhamma and the sangha. But the palace is also insinuating that Vajiralongkorn’s “royal boat of dhamma” is a fourth gem will help Thais attain nirvana.

The Bangkok Post reported:

His Majesty the King has released a new set of cartoon drawings featuring Buddhist teachings, which he wanted to share with all Thais… The monarch has attached importance to spreading Dhamma principles to all Buddhists in the country so they can learn and practise them to end their suffering by attaining wisdom and enlightenment, which is Buddhism's ultimate goal.

Anyone who wants to see more of the doodles conveying Vajiralongkorn’s wisdom can find many of them on the palace website or download a PDF here of the main cartoon book he has produced:

Palace dhamma boat

114MB ∙ PDF file

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Download

Here’s one example — Vajiralongkorn’s cute doodle depicting the various stages of bodily decomposition after death, which according to some monks including Ajahn Ton, everybody should carefully contemplate in order to understand the impermanence of earthy life and the “four elements of the body”.

As I have been reporting since the evening it happened, Vajiralongkorn’s eldest daughter Bajrakitiyabha has been brain dead since suffering a medical emergency on December 14, 2022, but continues to be kept artificially alive even though there is no prospect of her ever recovering. My article “Death of a dynasty” has full details. It’s not clear if Vajiralongkorn’s contemplation of bodily decomposition is the reason for him still refusing to just let her body die when she will never wake up, or if he has other reasons.

The palace has sponsored the production of English-language versions of some of the dhammanava material. Here’s one translated page.

Unsurprisingly, when the launch of the dhammanava “palace edition” was announced back in March, it was not taken particularly seriously by most observers of Thailand, including me. Clearly, distributing a bunch of Vajiralongkorn’s doodles across the country to teach religious wisdom was absurd, another daft propaganda initiative by a mad monarch who would only be considered an examplar of Buddhist virtue by the most deluded and ignorant people in the kingdom.

But it turns out that this was a much more significant initiative by the palace than most of us assumed at first.

For much of this year, Ajahn Ton and his organisation have been holding large events around Thailand to share the wisdom of Vajiralongkorn and dhammanava. Vajiralongkorn’s cartoons, and photographs of the king, are always very prominent at these events, and Ajahn Ton has become a celebrity monk.

There is a very cult-like vibe at the events. Participants are of course given books of the monarch’s doodles, which they are expected to treat with great reverence.

Participants are also all given identical sweatshirts with the slogan “RIGHT VIEW TEAM” which of course intensifies peer pressure and a desire to fit in with everybody else and have the “right view”.

The merchandise also includes the words “wisdom” and “truth” and “goodness”.

Devotees of dhammanava can even download a set of LINE stickers “for your life’s right view”.

The fanatical weirdness of the movement is apparent from many of the photographs of events on the dhammanava social media pages.

One of the main facilitators of these events is the micro-celebrity Rossukon “Kru Ngor” Kongket, a failed actress who became an acting coach and has now reinvented herself as a leading member of the dhammanava cult. It’s her job to get the crowd inspired and energised, and then Ajahn Ton gets brought on stage to impart Vajiralongjorn’s wisdom.

Kru Ngor gets participants to laugh, cry, cheer, have group hugs, and face all the sudden emotional swings that are common at events intended to brainwash participants.

The methods and intent of the palace dhammanava movement closely mirror an earlier recent mass movement initiated by Vajiralongkorn in 2017, the jit arsa or “Volunteer Spirit” civilian militia, who wear cub-scout like clothing with neckerchiefs and coloured uniforms, and supposedly mobilise to help their fellow Thais during natural disasters or other crises, or just to assist with general civic duties.

A Reuters article in 2018 described them as “a new army of civilians who have pledged allegiance to the king and are boosting the image of Vajiralongkorn”. It said “they carry out a range of tasks from cleaning public spaces to helping police to direct traffic”.

In fact, the reality of jit arsa is very different. Like dhammanava it’s a cult movement created to protect the monarchy. Both movements are based on indoctrination and relentless reverence of Vajiralongkorn. They just have a slightly different emphasis — dhammanava attracts idealistic religious Thai Buddhists while jit arsa has an ultraroyalist and ultranationalist ideology.

But fanatical Buddhism, royalist fervour and extreme nationalism are of course far from mutually exclusive, so the ideology of both groups overlaps. In practice, dhammanava is mainly for the middle-class aunties who don’t want to have to do any manual work, while jit arsa is mainly male and attracts those who enjoy wearing uniforms and demonstrating their masculine prowess.

The palace claims that jit arsa has several million members, but this is not really true. A large proportion of those who have joined the organisation are state employees who were ordered to take part in the initiation ritual, as many reluctant participants have told me, and documents leaked to me have confirmed. The number of true believers is much smaller.

The initial indoctrination for jit arsa usually lasts three days, the same as for dhammanava. But jit arsa induction ceremonies are much bigger and explicitly militaristic. Attendees have to dress in their scout uniforms, take part in military-style drills, and listen to hours of speeches and videos proclaiming the greatness of the monarchy and providing an ultranationalist version of Thai history.

As the Reuters article says:

Once they put on their new uniforms, the volunteers do a military-style salute to the king's portrait and, in a completely new tradition, they must line up and salute the king's portrait every time before starting a community activity.

Although the palace does not admit this, the jit arsa movement is run by the Internal Security Operations Command, usually referred to by its acronym ISOC, a shadowy sprawling military organisation with tentacles that spread throughout the kingdom, which focuses mainly on indoctrinating the population to try to ensure continued reverence for the monarchy and loyalty to the military.

ISOC evolved from the Communist Suppression Operations Command, CSOC, which was established in 1965 with significant involvement from the United States, and in particular the CIA.

Thai academic Puangthong Pawakapan, among the main experts on the organisation, wrote an excellent analysis on ISOC that is worth reading. You can download it here:

Puangthong paper on ISOC

965KB ∙ PDF file

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Download

She later published a superb book on ISOC, published in 2021, and is now being hounded by the organisation because she has produced a Thai version. The galaxy brains at ISOC clearly never read the English-language edition and it never even registered on their radar until the Thai-language version was being launched.

As Puanthong explains:

The Thai military’s Internal Security Operations Command (ISOC) was in charge of a wide range of civil affairs projects during the country’s struggle with the communist insurgency between the mid-1960s and the mid-1980s.

These projects — including rural development programmes, mass organizations and mobilization campaigns, and psychological operations — provided justification for the military to routinely penetrate the socio-political sphere.

With active support from King Bhumibol and Queen Sirikit, plus American experts in psy-ops, CSOC/ISOC fostered the creation of the Village Scout movement to combat communism in rural areas in the 1970s. Members joined after a multi-day initiation ceremony which as Paul Handley says in The King Never Smiles involved “ideological indoctrination and bonding through high-pressure psychological techniques”.

American anthropologist Katherine Bowie was one of the few foreigners to witness the indoctrination process, and provided extensive details in her 1997 book Rituals of National Loyalty. As she says, the movement “was an unlikely candidate to succeed in the serious business of combating communist insurgency” but achieved remarkable success:

The main criterion for membership was participation in a rite of initiation that involved five days and four nights of entertainment interspersed with a few didactic lessons. Participants performed skits, sang lighthearted songs specially written for the movement (such as “Holiday in America” and “Smile! Smile!”), and danced such moves as the bump, then popular in the United States, and the duck-waddle dance (ram pet), a unique dance to the Village Scouts that mimicked a ducks waddle. And yet the Village Scout movement succeeded in becoming the largest right-wing popular organization ever fabricated in Thai history.

At the end of the initiation, new Village Scouts were given a maroon neckerchief that they were told had sacred powers bestowed by the monarchy:

Combining royal majesty with village beliefs in sacred amulets, the Village Scout designers developed a magical folklore centering on the scout kerchiefs. Worn by all Village Scouts, these maroon kerchiefs were the most obvious feature distinguishing them from the population at large. The kerchiefs, given to each initiate at the close of the five-day initiation rite, were a special gift from the king of Thailand. They were portrayed as having mystical powers.

Bowie explains that the initiation ritual was carefully designed to indoctrinate participants and infuse them with unquestioning love for the monarchy. This was one reason why Village Scouts were heavily involved in the massacre of students at Thammasat University in 1976:

In the course of this five-day ritual, initiates were transformed into sobbing masses of humanity, overwhelmed by their new-found love of the Thai nation and their intensified love of the monarchy. This love of nation rendered initiates capable of hysterical hatred, never made clearer than in the murderous participation of Village Scouts in the atrocities against university students on October 6, 1976. Nurtured in magic, the movement peaked in mayhem.

After the era of the communist insurgency ended, ISOC never went away. It continued to do its best to indoctrinate Thais and influence their political views. As Puangthong explains:

The power of the Thai military is exerted not only through its use of force but also by means of its socio-political arms. ISOC represents a potent tool with which conservative elites can undermine and control electoral democracy and through which the military can maintain its power…

The policy of the semi-democracy regime to maintain the military-dominated mass organizations, despite the fall of the CPT, proved beneficial to the conservative elites when they faced new political threats. They could switch on the mass control programme immediately. The moves to remobilize, expand and strengthen their popular base began after the coup in 2006. They targeted a wide range of people from villagers to urban professionals, business and religious groups, the old and the young. Royal-nationalist ideology remained the central theme for cementing people into a state apparatus, along with many material benefits for members of the mass organizations.

The main role of mass organisations, as Puangthong observes, is to protect and support the monarchy:

The foremost objective of the revival of mass organizations and mobilization since the coup in 2006 is to protect the monarchy, the royal hegemony and status quo of the establishment by strengthening and expanding the network of royalist citizens. Members of the networks are meant to function as defenders and promoters of state ideology and institutions, and the ears and eyes of the state.

The jit arsa movement, with its neckerchiefs and rituals, is clearly an attempt to mimic the Village Scouts to protect the monarchy, using the decades of experience that ISOC has accumulated in psychological manipulation.

The royal dhammanava movement uses many of the same techniques, slightly more subtly. It’s the latest initiative by the monarchy and military to brainwash Thais.

The involvement of the military in dhammanava is not even hidden. Here’s Lieutenant General Kalasan Chantasen, who works for the palace and also ISOC, posing with Kru Ngor at an event earlier this year. He is wearing a circular badge with a picture of Prince Dipangkorn, which Vajiralongkorn gives to his most trusted subordinates.

IV. Celestial concubines

The dhammanava movement has organised numerous indoctrination events in Thailand this year, but also — intriguingly — one session overseas.

It was held from July 4 to 7, at the Hotel am Badersee in Bavaria, a luxurious lodging in the shadow of Germany’s highest mountain, the Zugspitze.

The dhammanava organisers said Vajiralongkorn had “graciously bestowed” the event for the benefit of Thais living in Germany, to mark his 72nd birthday on July 28, 2024. Accommodation and all meals for participants were paid for by the palace, or in other words, by Thai taxpayers. Ajahn Ton and Kru Ngor, as well as several other facilitators, were flown to Bavaria.

Attendees were almost all Thai women living in Europe, but some of them brought their farang partners too, and so the organisers created an English-language handout explaining Vajiralongkorn’s wisdom.

The palace always wants to be given credit for its fake acts of generosity, so as with anything given to Thais in the name of the monarchy, the single sheet of A4 paper given to farang participants had the words “Royal Gift” prominently displayed.

As usual at these events, all participants were given dhammanava-branded clothing to wear.

Some of the faring participants looked somewhat bemused by the experience.

The Hotel am Badersee is about 12 minutes drive from another luxurious Alpine establishment, the Grand Hotel Sonnenbichl in the nearby resort of Garmisch-Partenkirchen, where Vajiralongkorn spent most of his time between 2016 and October 2020 along with his harem.

He’d been living in Bavaria since 2007, initially at the Munich airport hotel and then at Sonnenbichl. I’ve written about his antics in Germany in several articles including “Bavarian rhapsody”, “Koi gone” and most recently “Pretty in pink” so I won’t go over the same details at length here, but for those who didn’t read those articles or are new to Secret Siam, the key points are that he became obsessed with a former army nurse called Niramon “Koi” Ounprom, who helped him recruit and manage a large harem of women based at Sonnenbichl, where he spent most of his days having group sex in a fourth-floor suite he called the “pleasure room”. Niramon was renamed Sineenat.

He called his harem “the SAS”, named after the Special Air Service, Britain’s most elite special forces corps. The harem was given the same motto as the Special Air Service too — “Who Dares Wins” — and the concubines were required to have short haircuts and do regular military training including parachute jumps.

After I broke this story in March 2020 it was picked up by media all over the world, with tabloid newspapers and even The Economist magazine writing about the Thai monarch’s “army of sex soldiers”.

Vajiralongkorn is far from the first mad dictator to have a fetish for creating a militarised group of concubines.

Most notably, the late Libyan despot Muammar Gaddafi established a team of female bodyguards who he called “the Revolutionary Nuns” and who were routinely sexually abused.

Vajiralongkorn gave Sineenat the task of working with ISOC to establish the jit arsa movement, and this is the reason their uniforms are yellow and blue. Yellow is the king’s colour, and Sineenat’s colour is blue.

On his 67th birthday in July 2019, less than three months after marrying former flight attendant Suthida Tidjai, who became Thailand’s queen, Vajiralongkorn elevated Sineenat to the position of “royal noble consort” in a ceremony in which he poured lustral water from a conch shell onto her head as she prostrated on the floor at his feet in a posture that demonstrated total subservience, right in front of the king’s appalled wife. Sineenat was given a new surname — Bilaskayani.

All of this unsurprisingly caused huge tensions between Queen Suthida and Noble Consort Sineenat, not least because Vajiralongkorn insisted on appearing in public with both women at official events.

Suddenly in October 2019, Vajiralongkorn became enraged with Sineenat, stripped her of all of her royal titles and ordered her to be imprisoned at the Central Women’s Correctional Institution at Lat Yao, with no judicial due process. But by August 2020 he had forgiven her and flew her on one of his private Boeing 737 planes to reunite with him in Bavaria.

This led to more excruciatingly awkward scenes of Suthida and Sineenat accompanying the king to various ceremonies and events. The last time they were seen together was in Bangkok in December 2021, at ceremonies marking the birthday of the late King Bhumibol.

Afterwards, Vajiralongkorn flew back to Bavaria with Suthida and Sineenat and his entourage for a couple of weeks. When he returned to Thailand at the end of December, he brought Suthida with him, but not Sineenat. She was left in Garmisch-Partenkirchen and has been there ever since.

Meanwhile, as I reported in “Pretty in pink”, for a while it seemed that Suthida had won the power struggle with Sineenat, but recently one of the youngest members of Vajiralongkorn’s harem appeared to have become his latest favourite.

Oranong Suwannasri, from Roi Et, who turned 32 on September 8, has been given private quarters in the Ratcharit Rungror royal residence, which was built in the Dusit Palace grounds during the reign of King Chulalongkorn. She’s been promoted to the rank of major general — the youngest in the entire Thai military — and the king has bestowed a new name on her, Oranong Piyanatvajiraphat, which roughly means “Beloved Dancer Bonded with Vajiralongkorn”.

• piya ปิยะ = beloved

• nat นาฏ = dancer

• vajira วชิร = Vajiralongkorn

• phat พัทธ์ = bonded

In an announcement in the Royal Gazette to coincide with Vajiralongkorn’s birthday in July, Oranong was among five harem members named as “special” Royal Guards. All five had also been given the rank of major general.

During the month ahead of Oranong’s birthday, her mother travelled around Roi Et province accompanied by regional government officials and army officers working with the palace, handing out so-called royal gift boxes which include various items including a diary entitled “Record of Love and Happiness” which has a cartoon on its cover that suggests Oranong is his current favourite concubine, and also the royal dhammanava doodles which Vajiralongkorn wants to be distributed throughout the kingdom.

But there have been a couple of major post twists since my previous article.

On August 30, another concubine, Chayutra, who was also among the five harem members given special status on Vajiralongkorn’s birthday, represented the palace in a ceremony at Wat Phutthabucha in Bangkok to present royal dhammanava cartoons to the abbot. A palace statement revealed she has also been given a new special surname — Vajiraphatsopa.

• vajira วชิร = Vajiralongkorn

• phat พัทธ = bonded

• sopa โสภา = beautiful

So the name roughly means "Beauty bonded to Vajiralongkorn".

At the temple she was dressed in military uniform, including the winged badge given to those who have completed parachute training, plus the Dipangkorn badge that Vajiralongkorn gives to those he trusts.

Chayutra was accompanied by two other members of the SAS harem, both colonels, Sirikanda Thipayavajirapakdi and Porntip Sirivajirapakdi. The royally-bestowed surnames indicate they are concubines, as do their paratrooper and Dipangkorn badges.

An even bigger bombshell was the reappearance of Sineenat.

Over two days, on August 30 and 31, she hosted a Zoom call with military officers, civil servants and monks to discuss the next steps in spreading the dhammanava doodles of Vajiralongkorn to enlighten the people of Thailand. Vajiralongkorn has put Sineenat in charge of coordinating with ISOC on the dhammanava project, just as he did with jit arsa.

She was dressed in full military uniform, with so many badges that there was scarcely any room for more.

Several other members of the SAS harem were also in the room for the conference call. You can see them on the right, all with short hair and paratrooper badges.

Sineenat confirmed that she was hosting the Zoom call from Garmisch-Partenkirchen in Bavaria. Vajiralongkorn is continuing to rent the Grand Hotel Sonnenbichl, despite not having visited Germany since December 2021, and besides Sineenat and several harem members, it’s clear that there is a sizeable entourage of military officers still there too.

The purpose of this remains mysterious. Why is the king still renting a large hotel in an Alpine resort in Germany, and what are all these people doing there? The vast expense comes out of the pockets of Thai taxpayers.

One of the main messages of Vajiralongkorn’s dhammanava propaganda is the importance of following Bhumibol’s so-called “sufficiency economy” pseudo-philosophy that emphasises moderation and the avoidance of wasteful indulgences. Now the project is being promoted by the king’s official consort from a vast hotel more than five thousand miles away in Bavaria. It makes no sense at all.

Meanwhile, while some of the SAS remain in Bavaria, others are in Thailand. The two who seem to be the most in favour for the moment, Oranong and Chayutra, were recently photographed at an event sitting alongside prime minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra and Bangkok governor Chadchart Sittipunt.

There are other signs that Sineenat is making a comeback. As I wrote in “Koi gone”, there have been various changes to the jit arsa uniform. After her fall from grace in 2019, it was changed from yellow and blue to yellow and purple, replacing Sineenat’s colour with Suthida’s. In practice, because hundreds of thousands of uniforms had already been distributed before the switch, since then there have been some members of the mass movement with Suthida’s colours and others with Sineenat’s.

But now the interior ministry has decreed that the uniform should be yellow and blue.

The highlighted text reads:

1) When performing volunteer duties, wear a blue hat and a yellow scarf on all occasions.

2) Discontinue the use of purple hats and yellow scarves with purple trim until further notice.

3) For Royal Volunteer 504 who have received both types of royal gifts, wear a blue hat, a yellow scarf, and a yellow-blue coded shirt when participating in royal volunteer projects. This is to be followed starting from September 12, 2024, onward.

On September 19, Vajiralongkorn sent royal gifts and robes to Phra Brahmavachirodom, ecclesiastical governor of Region 10 and abbot of Wat Moleelok Yaram Rajaworavihara in Bangkok. Among the gifts was a framed phorograph of several members of the harem, and Thai military officers in Bavaria showing off their dhammanava studies certificates, with Sineenat at the centre.

In “Pretty in pink” I wrote that Oranong is the king’s current favourite among his harem, and that still appears to be the case. On her birthday on September 8, the famous temple Wat Song Sawoei in Chainat province held a merit-making ceremony to promote the royal dhammanava initiative. They claimed it was in honour of Vajiralongkorn’s birthday, but that was way back in July. The promotional material was yellow and pink, and included more of the king’s doodles of a man dressed in yellow, representing himself, and a woman in pink, representing Oranong.

Oranong is also usually present in the background when Vajiralongkorn appears in public.

But clearly Chayutra is also a special concubine to him, and the role of Sineenat is extremely interesting.

One of the things Vajiralongkorn always liked about Sineenat was that she didn’t disapprove of his constant frolicking with his harem. On the contrary, she encouraged it, and helped recruit and manage the SAS. Most of the harem still feel loyalty towards her, including Oranong, to whom she had been very close.

In 2019, Sineenat met the supreme patriarch, part of Vajiralongkorn’s efforts to purify her reputation. The woman filming on a phone in the background is Oranong.

So it’s plausible that Sineenat has not actually been supplanted by other members of the harem, but is still running the SAS, and is comfortable with Vajiralongkorn focusing on his latest favourites for now, because she’s playing a longer game. The reason why she’s been in Bavaria for nearly three years, away from Vajiralongkorn, remains unknown, but it seems she is still a contender.

Meanwhile, other members of the SAS harem are also rising rapidly up the ranks in the army, and being given new names.

One of them, Jutharat “Baitoey” Petsom, a former army nurse like Sineenat, is the sister of Jareerat “Baitong” Petsom who won the Miss Earth Thailand beauty pageant in 2021 and was named Miss Earth Fire the same year in the international contest, which was held online because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Jutharat has had an incredible ascent in the army in 2024, being promoted four times:

• February: promoted from sergeant to second lieutenant.

• May: promoted to first lieutenant.

• September: promoted to captain.

• October: promoted to major.

No genuine soldier would ever rise through the ranks this quickly. It takes years to progress from sergeant to major — unless you are in the king’s SAS.

On October 1, two other members of the SAS were promoted to the rank of colonel and given new surnames, replacing Sirivajirapakdi which is the standard name given to rank-and-file members of the harem.

Porntip received the new surname Sophinsuphaphat.

• sophin โสภิณ = beautiful

• supha ศุภ = virtuous

• phat พัทธ์ = bonded

Anusara’s surname became Suksawatvajaraporn.

• sukh สุข = happy

• sawat สวัสดิ์ = successful

• vajara วชิร = Vajiralongkorn

• porn ภรณ์ = devoted

So it’s clear that Vajiralongkorn is not just using his promotion of the royal dhammanaja project to purify his own image. By using Sineenat and the SAS to spread the wisdom contained in his royal doodles, he is trying to purify them too.

Instead of being associated with licentiousness and immorality, the king is trying to rebrand himself as a dhammarājā, and Sineenat and the SAS as holy warriors helping share his religious insights throughout the kingdom. He is trying to make the profane sacred.

Of course it will never work, for the majority of Thais. Only the small fraction of the population who remain brainwashed true believers in the royal cult will ever buy the pretence that Vajiralongkorn is a saint and his concubines are spiritual skydiving nuns helping Thais board the ferry to nirvana.

Everybody else knows the king is mad and the SAS is just a weird militarised harem. But creating a religious mass movement to bolster support for the monarchy and purify his image is certainly an audacious plan.

Naval skirmishes

One of the many things I learned in conversations with the anthropologist Christine Gray over the years is that coincidences are rare among the royals. There is usually a hidden message or purpose in their actions, even if it may not be explicit or immediately apparent. The dates and times of announcements and public appearances, of travel plans, even the number of the floor they are treated on in hospital when unwell, usually tend to have numerological or astrological significance. The choice of uniform to wear for a public appearance, and other aspects of self-presentation — like Vajiralongkorn’s penchant for white poodles, for example, or Princess Sirindhorn’s continuation of Bhumibol’s habit of taking a camera and notebook when on trips around the kingdom — send a deliberate message.

So it may not be a coincidence that in the same week that Sineenat dramatically reappeared as the driving force behind the dhamma boat project, her arch rival Suthida was widely photographed on a very different kind of nautical journey.

She flew to the Spanish island of Mallorca to take part in a yacht race as a guest aboard a boat called Vayu. Among the entourage accompanying her was police general Jirabhop Bhuridej, head of the Central Investigation Bureau and brother of Jakrapob, Vajiralongkorn’s notorious security chief. He was presumably there not just as a very senior bodyguard but also to keep a close eye on her.

The yacht is owned by the extremely wealthy Whitcraft family, who own the sprawling Bangkok-based RMA Group conglomerate. The conglomerate was founded in 1985 by Mark Whitcraft, an American who settled in Thailand in 1957, and is now run by his sons Tom and Kevin, although they spend most of their time sailing and leave the day-to-day management of the group to their underlings.

Mark initially worked at Goodyear when he moved to Thailand. His wife Rosemary involved herself in charitable causes and also helped compile the royalist tome The King of Thailand in World Focus, one of several propaganda books published by Editions Didier Millet with assistance from the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand.

Americans in Thailand, another Didier Millet book written with input from FCCT journalists, says Mark and his two sons began “selling everything from steel mills to paper in the region” in 1985:

With the father as chairman, the RMA Group's fortunes soared, especially after the advent of the war in Afghanistan. Its turnover in 2014 had reached $1 billion, with more than 8,000 employees around the globe involved in automotive, engineering, food and financial services. The portfolio included Ford dealerships in Kazakhstan, fast food franchises in Cambodia and heavy equipment sales in South Sudan. The Whitcrafts' expansion strategy mirrored that of other foreign businessmen… move from local to regional to global, not only to reap bigger profits but as protective cushioning from unexpected turbulence in Thailand such as the financial crisis that would devastate the economy in 1997.

Like the US-born Minor Group founder Bill Heinecke and family, and the Link clan from Germany that controls the B. Grimm Group conglomerate, the Whitcrafts took Thai citizenship and became part of the Thai business elite. Mark died in 2015, three years after his wife. According to Americans in Thailand, his sons speak fluent Thai, and Tom even dyed his hair to look more local:

In spite of their global success, the Whitcrafts have remained very much Thailand-centered. Tom, who became a Thai citizen, focuses on Thailand-based operations and new projects as an RMA director. Kevin, the company's CEO, speaks Thai and Mandarin flawlessly. He also took Thai citizenship and has sailed with the national team in international competitions. Teased by teammates about being a farang, he dyed his light brown hair to “look as Thai as I felt”.

Since 2021, the family's racing yacht Vayu has been a participant in the 52 Super Series, a nautical racing circuit that holds events in various parts of the world each year. The yacht sails under the Thai flag in the competition.

According to the 52 Super Series website, Vayu is “a unique program on the circuit with as many as six or seven family members on board at any one time. Co-owners are brothers Tom and Kevin Whitcraft and the pro-am team includes double Olympic silver medallist Nick Rogers as tactician, Miles Seddon as navigator and mainsheet trimmer Pom Green runs the project”. Also aboard was Thai yachtswoman Noppakao Poonpat.

It was Suthida’s third time aboard Vayu in a yacht race. In December 2023 she took part in the Phuket King's Cup, and in April 2024 she was on board for the Vega Rudder Race, a straight-line dash of 57 nautical miles from the Regent Cha-Am Resort in Phetchaburi across the Gulf of Thailand to Toey Ngam Beach at Sattahip, commemorating Bhumibol’s crossing of the same route in an OK Dinghy in 1966.

Her presence aboard Vayu, especially at the international event in Mallorca, was a remarkable public relations coup for the Whitcraft family and indeed the 52 Super Series, which heavily promoted her participation (the music in the following video was added by them, not me).

Mark Whitcraft,

The Whitcraft brothers, who are Thai citizens, gained significant additional status and prestige by hosting Suthida. But desperate to kowtow to the queen, they made the daft claim that she was a full working member of the crew, with the role of “strategist”. This was just pure sycophantic dishonesty.

The media were fed a concocted story claiming Suthida was playing a crucial role. All Thai newspapers reported some variant of this fiction:

Her Majesty the Queen, in her role as the strategist of Team Vayu, number THA27, is responsible for observing the wind direction and planning before the wind reaches the boat. This allows team members to reposition and balance the boat in time according to the passing wind currents. Since the strength of the wind and waves varies at different moments, the team that can quickly and accurately read the wind direction will be able to make the boat sail at its fastest speed.

In fact, if Vayu had really needed a strategist, with their vast resources the Whitcraft family would have hired one long ago, rather than going without and then appointing a novice who was only taking part in her third yacht race.

Vayu already had a tactician — double Olympic silver medallist Nick Rogers. Suthida's only job was to sit and smile and bestow her great prestige on the Whitcrafts. If she added anything at all to the racing effort, it was by providing ballast as an additional body on board.

Miles Seddon, the Vayu navigator, praised Suthida as “so enthusiastic" and “a bright bubbly personality”. He claimed that although she was “fairly new to sailing” she had “a good understanding of the wind” and was “a very encouraging person”. He didn’t exactly repeat the daft fiction that she was Vayu’s strategist, saying “she’s helping with strategy a bit” thanks to her “pilot knowledge and understanding of the wind and the clouds”. He was basically saying she was nice but not an accomplished sailor and had not contributed a great deal.

Royalist social media sites heavily promoted Suthida’s sailing activities. Monarchist propagandist Chananya Chewchinda, apparently embarrassed that Vayu did not perform particularly strongly in the Mallorca races, claimed that this was not because of any deficiencies in Suthida’s sailing skills, but because the yacht was the oldest and least efficient in the event, and other teams had professional crews (apparently forgetting that Vayu has several professional sailors aboard too). She said that on one occasion Suthida spotted the wind direction before anyone else, but nobody listened to her. Amazingly, this nonsense was supposed to boost Suthida’s image.

The “Royal World Thailand” news site posted several photographs and videos, as did most Thai media.

But not all the publicity was positive. A report in the Mallorca Daily Bulletin included this paragraph:

In the midst of the pandemic, King Rama X decided to skip all protocols and any ethical or moral attitude towards his people and took refuge in a luxurious hotel in Germany. There he locked himself up for months with a harem of 20 women. Queen Suthida went to the Swiss town of Engelberg, far from the king.

Suthida was criticised on social media for jetting off to a yacht race in Mallorca when Thais in the north of the kingdom were dealing with devastating floods.

Thai Airways provided a special "charter flight" aboard a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner direct from Don Muang to Mallorca for Suthida and her entourage on August 26, and another to being them back to Bangkok on September 2/3. It remains unknown who footed the bill for this — the financially troubled national airline, the Whitcraft family, or Thai taxpayers. It’s highly unlikely it was the palace — the Thai royals much prefer freebies to having to pay for anything, despite their immense wealth.

Suthida’s participation in the yacht race may have raised her profile abroad and boosted her image among some younger Thais, but to traditional royalists, some of the images were jarring and troubling.

Suthida was travelling abroad without the king. She was not treated as she would be treated in Thailand — there was no prostration, no symbolic umbrellas, no performative reverence of her. She was informally interacting with a large number of foreign men, both aboard the yacht and at social events, and even carried a bag herself rather than having a servant do it. She drank alcohol.

Suthida attended the victory celebrations of the winning team, the crew of the British yacht Gladiator, and was photographed standing amid an overwhelmingly male group who were passing around a giant bottle of AIX rosé wine.

This behavior would not be considered objectionable by most Westerners, but to conservative ultraroyalist Thais, whose minds are still marooned in the past, it showed a shocking lack of decorum.

The photographs from Mallorca were a stark contrast to the images of Sineenat and members of the SAS in military uniforms promoting Vajiralongkorn’s spiritual wisdom. And this may not have been accidental.

We will probably never know for sure, but it’s not implausible that Sineenat timed her reappearance to coincide with her arch rival Suthida’s trip to go yacht racing in Mallorca. It gave her the opportunity to seize the moral high ground and pose as a figure of great spiritial purity, working diligently in Bavaria to help her fellow Thais board the boat of dhamma towards nirvana, while Suthida was carousing with foreigners on racing yachts in casual clothing.

In her PhD thesis, Gray explained the “antinomy bind” facing Thai royals:

Since at least the nineteenth century, Thai-Buddhist kings and their political successors have faced an endless variety of situations in which their performance of traditional legitimating activities delegitimates them in the eyes of their Western audiences and their adoption of Western ideologies and modes of behavior delegitimates them in the eyes of their indigenous audiences.

Suthida has fallen into this trap.

For a while she appeared to have come out on top in her power struggle with Sineenat, but it has now become clear that Sineenat is still very much in the game, and far from growing bored of his SAS harem as he gets older — he’s already 72 — Vajiralongkorn seems to be more obsessed with them than ever, showering them with gifts and absurd military promotions.

When Sineenat’s reappearance and Suthida’s yachting holiday were first reported on social media, a crude online information operation was launched, with numerous people spamming posts on Facebook with an identical comment.

The English translation is:

They each contribute to the country in different ways. The queen participates in sports because of her athletic talents, while chao khun phra excels in dhamma and morality, focusing on that work. Meanwhile, King Rama X continues to work hard with his entourage in addressing flood issues. All of them love the Thai people equally. Each serves the country according to their strengths. Let’s not create divisions.

It was remarkable to see Sineenat, mamasan of Vajiralongkorn’s militarised harem, being reinvented as an expert in dhamma and morality, while Suthida was given lukewarm praise as being quite good at sport. The absurd statement made the king’s women sound like a twisted version of the Spice Girls, with Sineenat as Sacred Spice, Suthida as Sporty Spice and Oranong as Sexy Spice.

The phrase that all of them love the Thai people equally echoed Vajiralongkorn’s infamous comment to Jonathan Miller, a journalist for CNN and Britain’s Channel 4, who ambushed the monarch to ask questions during a royal walkabout in November 2020. Asked what he thought of protesters demanding royal reform, Vajiralongkorn has replied: “We love them all the same.”

Suthida continued her sporting activisties in October. She was named the first “women global ambassador” of the International Ice Hockey Federation, and was part of the Thai team that played China in a friendly match in Bangkok to mark the 75th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic.

They engineered the match to ensure it was a draw, with Thailand and China scoring six goals each.

Suthida was, of course, allowed to score the first goal.

But that will be small consolation given the increasingly isolated position she now finds herself in as Sineenat and the SAS amass ever increasing power and influence in the Thai royal court.

The gas-powered vehicle was a disaster waiting to happen. It was more than half a century old, first registered with the Land Transport Department in February 1970 as a Japanese-built Isuzu diesel bus, but heavily modified over the years and converted to run on compressed natural gas, with a new chassis and eight-cylinder Mercedes engine. It was licensed to have six gas canisters, all at the rear, but in fact it had 11 stored all around the lower deck.

It should never have been allowed on the road.

After a minor accident on Vibhavadi Rangsit Road in the northern outskirts of Bangkok on September 30, the gas canisters ignited and fire swiftly consumed the vehicle. Many of the bodies of the dead children were found at the back of the bus, where they fled to try to escape the flames but were unable to get out. The driver of the bus left the scene but later handed himself in to police.

Sixteen children and three teachers managed to escape the burning bus. Three of the children were in critical condition and were taken to Rangsit Medical Centre. The rest were brought to the Royal Development Projects and Security Coordination Centre in Pathum Thani.

If the welfare of the children was the top priority of the government, the doctors at Rangsit would have been left in peace to do their work, and the survivors at the army centre in Pathum Thani would have been looked after in a stress-free environment, cared for by psychiatrists, trauma specialists and other professionals who know what they are doing.

But this is Thailand. The children quickly became unwilling performers in a circus of political self-promotion.

Prime minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra, who was visibly moved by the tragedy and has two young children of her own, made a pointless visit to Rangsit Medical Centre. This caused significant stress and disruption, as staff scrambled to give an appropriate welcome to their VIP visitor and her large delegation and security team. It’s unclear what her visit achieved aside from being a photo opportunity for Paetongtarn.

She then made her way to Pathum Thani to see the other survivors, where she at least showed genuine compassion and concern.

The same could not be said for interior minister Anutin Charnvirakul and transport minister Suriya Juangroongruangkit. A jaw-dropping photograph shows bewildered children sitting on the floor at the feet of the ministers and their large delegation as journalists take pictures.

Children who had just survived a traumatic disaster in which many of their friends had been killed were used as props for political publicity, in a highly stressful and confusing environment. It was was utterly unacceptable and inappropriate. The manic grin on Suriya’s face made the scene even more ghastly.

Trying to defend the debacle, transport ministry spokesman Kritchanon Dr Tan" Aiyapanya claimed in a ridiculous tweet that the children were brought to sit on the floor out of kindness because it was in an air-conditioned hall. He said Suriya had even graciously enquired about finding chairs for them. Meanwhile a “source from the Supreme Command of the Armed Forces” who didn’t even provide their name gave a different excuse to Khaosod English, claiming the children were sitting on the ground because a bus to take them back to Uthai Thani was arriving shortly, and the ministers “dropped by to check on them”.

Both explanations are clearly bogus, and it is a reliable sign that people are lying when their excuses don’t even match with each other.

Eventually the bus to take the children back to Uthai Thani arrived. Nobody seems to have thought it might be traumatising for them to board another bus so soon after the tragedy, and that maybe organising cars would have been a better solution.

By now deputy interior minister Sabida Thaiseth had also arrived to join the circus. She’s one of the daughters of notorious Uthai Thani mafia godfather Chada Thaiseth, a member of Anutin’s Bhumjai Thai party who held the deputy ministerial role in the previous cabinet.

After the Supreme Court removed former prime minister Srettha Thavisin for a relatively minor ethical violation, the Pheu Thai coalition realised it was too risky to reappoint infamous crooks like Chada and Tamanat Prompow, so the gangsters just nominated relatives instead to act as their proxies. That’s how Sabida got the job.

Sabida was photographed with the children as they boarded the bus, and then in another blatant piece of self-promotion, a photograph from inside the bus, showing a young girl sleeping with her head on Sabina’s lap as they headed back to Uthai Thani, was posted on social media by her sister Krittiya.

These people have no interest in quiet acts of compassion and kindness. Their benevolence has to be broadcast to the whole kingdom.

For Thailand’s political class, every tragedy is an opportunity to be exploited. Instead of letting professionals handle the crisis, they shamelessly scramble to get themselves involved and signal their great virtue, despite not really having a clue what they are doing. Disaster porn has become routine.

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Floods of (crocodile) tears

Whenever there is a flooding crisis in Thailand, politicians and celebrities rush to the scene to get photographs of themselves bravely wading through the water handing out relief supplies to pathetically grateful villagers. The latest severe flooding in northern provinces since August has been no exception.

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Several of the images in this article are taken from the anonymous Facebook page สมเด็จพระจักรพรรดินีศรีศศิเฌอปรางวัชรสุภางควดี which is an excellent source of reliable information on the royals. As always I am also indebted to the insights of Ajarn Somsak Jeamteerasakul.

I. Record of Love and Happiness

Vajiralongkorn Bodindradebayavarangkun is a prolific doodler.

Besides his other favourite pastimes such as cruelty and sadism, cycling, political meddling, collecting planes as garden ornaments, and public semi-nudity, Thailand’s monarch enjoys drawing infantile pictures depicting kitsch sentimental scenes of happy families and social harmony, in which everybody is always smiling — not just humans but clouds, houses, plants, fruit and vegetables, and the sun too.

His New Year card for 2018 is a typical example. On one side, the ghost of the king’s late father Bhumibol, looking dapper in a suit and tie in the afterlife, peers benevolently down from the clouds at Vajiralongkorn and his mother Sirikit. On the other, Vajiralongkorn has shared some of his signature doodles.

Most of Vajiralongkorn’s sketches share similar characteristics. They tend to show an idealised family unit, with a loving father and mother, a son and a daughter, and a pet white toy poodle. In the New Year card above the poodle can be seen three times — to the right of the bicycle in the top image, sheltering under an umbrella in the middle doodle, and beside the snowman in the lowest drawing.

Vajiralongkorn is famously fond of toy poodles. He owns several, although the most famous, his beloved Foo Foo, upon whom he bestowed the rank of Air Chief Marshal, died in 2015 and was cremated after a four-day funeral. You can read more about him and other palace pets in my article “A history of modern Thailand in five royal dogs”.

There are plenty of other clues in Vajiralongkorn’s cartoons that he is depicting an idealised image of himself. It’s odd that he usually only shows two children in the doodles — a son and a daughter — when in fact he has two acknowledged daughters, Bajrakitiyabha and Sirivannavari, as well as his son Dipangkorn, plus four more sons who were banished from Thailand in 1996.

But the poodle is a giveaway, and he also uses colours to signal who his scribbles represent. In Thailand, each day of the week is represented by a different auspicious colour, a remnant of ancient Hindu astrological beliefs that still persist in Thailand today.

Both Vajiralongkorn and his formerly revered father Bhumibol were born on a Monday, so their colour is yellow. This is why the extremist royalist activists who worshipped Bhumibol and spent years trying to sabotage Thaksin Shinawatra and his family wore yellow clothing, and became the so-called Yellow Shirt movement.

The king’s sister Sirindhorn was born on a Saturday so she’s purple. Her royal flag is purple, her supporters wear purple in her presence, and if you ever have dinner or stay the night at the Kempinski Hotel at Siam Paragon in Bangkok you will be struck by the peculiar preponderance of purple. Sirindhorn owns the land and has a large stake in the business.

The father figure in Vajiralongkorn’s crudely drawn cartoons is always yellow. It’s very sad he’s been so emotionally stunted and damaged by being born into the Chakri dynasty that he can only express himself via childish drawings that suggest a yearning for a happy family life he has never had, and never will have. He may be murderous, mad and malevolent, but he’s also a spoiled and needy little boy who never grew up and who craves affection.

His doodles frequently include clues about his life. The colour of the father never changes, but the colour of his female companion sometimes does, reflecting his latest favourite consort.

Vajiralongkorn officially wed his fourth wife, former Thai Airways flight attendant Suthida Tidjai, on May 1, 2019, shortly before his formal coronation. She became queen of Thailand. Her colour is purple, because her birthday, June 3, 1978, was a Saturday.

But by the time of the marriage he was already sick of Suthida, and obsessed with a new favourite — former army nurse Niramon “Koi” Ounprom. The king likes bestowing new names on his concubines, so Koi became Sineenat Wongvajirabhakdi.

• wong วงศ์ = family

• vajira วชิร = Vajiralongkorn

• bhakdi ภักดี = loyal

Niramon was born on January 26, 1985. Although this was a Saturday, Sineenat’s birth was before dawn so under Thailand’s arcane colour conventions, her hue is Friday’s light blue.

Less than three months after marrying Suthida, on his 67th birthday Vajiralongkorn humiliated the queen by making Niramon an official concubine, bestowing the archaic rank of royal noble consort upon her and pouring lustral water from a conch shell onto her head as she prostrated on the floor at his feet in a posture that demonstrated total subservience, at a ceremony right in front of his appalled wife.

It was another step backwards towards the era of absolute monarchy and kingly polygamy.

Sineenat got yet another new surname — Bilaskayani.

• bilas พิลาส = beauty

• kalyani กัลยาณี = noble

Having a wife and an ambitious official concubine inevitably caused conflict and rivalry, and the princesses Bajrakitiyabha and Sirivannavari became involved in the infighting because they got on well with Suthida and didn’t like Sineenat.

During an extended visit to Bangkok in October 2019, the tensions erupted, and after a huge argument in the palace, Vajiralongkorn stripped Sineenat of all of her royal titles and ordered her to be imprisoned at the Central Women’s Correctional Institution at Lat Yao. The regime, of course, made no attempt to block this blatant extrajudicial punishment. A royal statement accused Sineenat of being “not content with the title bestowed upon her” and “doing everything to rise to the level of the queen”.

Vajiralongkorn’s sudden and savage mood swings are another symptom of his impaired emotional growth. So too is his tendency to become obsessed with a favourite woman — never his wife — and to make childishly ostentatious declarations of devotion. By August 2020 had forgiven Sineenat and flew her on one of his private Boeing 737 planes to reunite with him in Bavaria.

This was the start of a renewed ordeal of constant humiliation for the queen. Sineenat routinely accompanied Vajiralongkorn and Suthida on royal engagements, causing excruciating awkwardness for everybody except the oblivious monarch.

By the end of 2020, Vajiralongkorn had thrown caution to the wind and was openly infatuated with Sineenat. The pair of them increasingly began appearing in public without Suthida, often wearing matching colour coordinated outfits.

The rivalry between Suthida and Sineenat led to multiple changes of uniform for the cult-like Chit Arsa civilian militia that Vajiralongkorn had established, partly modelled on the anti-communist Village Scout movement his parents had fostered in the 1970s.

Sineenat was heavily involved in the conceptualisation and creation of Chit Arsa in 2017, and to acknowledge this the uniform was yellow and blue.

After her fall from grace in 2019, the uniform was hastily changed to yellow and purple, to reflect Suthida’s colour. Then after Sineenat was rehabilitated in 2020, the uniform changed back to the previous colours.

Vajiralongkorn also expressed his devotion to Sineenat via his cartoonish scribbles — like a lovestruck schoolboy (or schoolgirl) signalling their obsession with their latest crush by doodling on the cover of their homework jotter.

His card for New Year 2021 included photographs of himself and Sineenat, and drawings of a loving couple coloured yellow for the male and light blue for the female, with two children and a white poodle, as usual. A flag flying from a smiling anthropomorphised house declared “Happy New Year 2021” and even a hill in the background was smiling.

There was no sign or mention of Suthida anywhere on the card.

Another cartoon released in February 2021 was drawn on Sineenat’s personal notepaper, as can be seen by her insignia on the left of the page — the interlinked letters MVS, for Mahidol, Vajiralongkorn and Sineenat, in yellow and blue. The figures in the cartoons were also colour coded — yellow for Vajiralongkorn and light blue for Sineenat— and so was the flag with a heart insignia flying over the palace.

By early 2021, Sineenat was pressuring Vajiralongkorn to elevate her from her rank as a royal noble consort and make her a queen. It would have been the first time since the reign of King Chulalongkorn, Rama V, that a Thai king had more than one queen.

The besotted monarch was willing to agree, and intended to hold a ceremony on her birthday on January 26 to bestow the title upon her. But the plan was furiously opposed by the king’s daughters Bajrakitiyabha and Sirivannavari, who were aghast that they would have to move down a notch in the royal hierarchy if Sineenat became queen, and would have to show deference to a woman they loathed.

In the end, it never happened, and over the year that followed, Vajiralongkorn seems to have gradually got bored of Sineenat. She was last seen in public at a ceremony for the birthday of the late King Bhumibol on December 5, 2021. After that, she disappeared from view once again. My article “Koi Gone” tells the full story of the rise and fall, and rise again and fall again, of Sineenat.

Queen Suthida appeared to have weathered the storm, and regained the support of Vajiralongkorn.

Until now.

Over the past month, in an unexpected palace initiative, Royal Guard soldiers and Chit Arsa volunteers have been distributing so-called royal gift boxes in various parts of Roi Et province. The boxes are decorated with more of Vajiralongkorn’s doodles. Some have yellow lids, some pink.

Inside each box are various items including a spiral-bound diary, also decorated with the king’s artwork, and entitled “Record of Love and Happiness”.

There are several intriguing aspects to this latest doodle. As usual it is cloyingly cheesy, with a grinning rosy-cheeked family, smiling vegetables and houses and planets and an unidentifiable square blue thing, plus of course a white poodle.

But unusually, at the top it has a version of Vajiralongkorn’s royal crest we have never seen before — the monogram is yellow and pink.

The family depicted at the bottom is also a bit different from past doodles. There’s a father, presumably supposed to be yellow although the printing has rendered him in a hue more like mucus green, marked with the number 904, which denotes Vajiralongkorn. During Bhumibol’s reign, the senior royals were identified by a number in radio communications. Bhumibol was 901 and Vajiralongkorn was 904.

There is a son, shaded blue which is Dipangkorn’s colour, marked with the word “captain”.

And there’s a pink woman with the number 002, never previously seen in his drawings.

Who is she and why does she have a number? To answer that question we have to rewind the story to the Bavarian alps a decade ago.

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I. The wrong enemy

In 2019, Thailand’s royalist elite belatedly realised they had spent a decade and a half fighting the wrong enemy.

For 15 years they had been obsessively fixated on the threat supposedly posed by Thaksin Shinawatra. By 2005, Thaksin had become so popular and powerful that he was feared and hated by leading figures in the palace, the old aristocracy, the traditional establishment and the military, and most rival billionaire businessmen too.

They conspired to topple him in a military coup in September 2006, but to their horror Thaksin didn’t just quietly give up. He never stopped fighting, and remained one of the most powerful people in Thai politics even during his years of self-imposed exile abroad.

But contrary to the paranoia of the royalist elite, Thaksin was never really a threat to the status quo. Although he continued to constantly meddle in Thai politics after being deposed, he wasn’t trying to stir up a revolution or instigate huge changes in society. During his years abroad all he was really trying to do was to strike a deal that allowed him to return to Thailand and regain the money the state had seized from him.

He didn’t want to overthrow the elite. He just wanted to join them again.

Meanwhile, a tectonic shift in attitudes was taking place, especially among younger Thais. The most recent military coup, in May 2014, provoked intense dismay and disillusionment, and the national trauma of King Bhumibol’s death in October 2016, followed by the accession to the throne of the reviled King Vajiralongkorn, had a profound impact on perceptions of the monarchy. The explosive growth in use of social media in Thailand meant that it was easier than ever before in history to see through palace propaganda and debate previously taboo issues.

The junta led by Prayut Chan-ocha clung grimly to power for almost five years before holding a general election, and engineered a constitution that was a mockery of democracy which allowed them to keep hanging on for more than four years afterwards, becoming ever more despised.

It was in this combustible environment that a new political force emerged in Thailand. Future Forward, co-founded by charismatic billionaire Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit and activist legal academic Piyabutr Saengkanokkul, was unlike any political party the kingdom had ever seen before.

Its policy agenda was eminently reasonable but remarkably radical by Thai standards. Its leaders were young — Thanathorn was 39 when Future Forward was launched in 2018 and Piyabutr was 38. Unlike other parties it had no provincial patronage networks that could mobilise votes, and it did not engage in vote buying and bribery. Instead it mainly used social media to spread its message and promote its policies.

As academics Duncan McCargo and Anyarat Chattharakul explain in their book Future Forward: The Rise and Fall of a Political Party:

Future Forward stormed the Thai political scene in early 2018... The new party challenged the ruling military junta and called for a radical overhaul of the country's economy and power structures. It had a formidable appeal to younger voters and quickly assumed the mantle of an insurgent political movement. Campaigning on a progressive platform of trimming the bloated defence budget, ending conscription and reviewing business monopolies, Future Forward generated considerable excitement…

Thanathorn and his colleagues were careful to avoid any direct challenge to the monarchy, but their progressive agenda and pledge to kick the military out of politics made it clear where they stood on the subject.

The royalist elite saw little threat from Future Forward at first. The party was brand new, it had no infrastructure to mobilise votes, and most of its election candidates were young and relatively unknown, while more established parties fielded prominent local personalities with clout and an established reputation.

They were shocked by the results of the general election in March 2019. Thaksin’s proxy party Pheu Thai won the most seats — 136, with 7.9 million votes. Prayut’s political vehicle Palang Pracharath got more votes — 8.4 million — but won only 119 seats due to the eccentricities of Thailand’s anti-democratic election system. But the real surprise was Future Forward which won 81 seats with 6.2 million votes, making it the third biggest bloc in parliament, far ahead of established parties like the Democrats and Bhumjai Thai. It was a stunning result.

As McCargo and Anyarat observed:

Few analysts had expected such a strong showing from Future Forward… Few recognised that a brand-new party could win so many votes in the provinces, with minimal campaign infrastructure on the ground.

King Vajiralongkorn and his sidekick Apirat Kongsompong, the fanatically ultraroyalist army chief, were appalled. A party that had promised to downsize the military and remove its influence on politics, with leaders known to also be in favour of reform of the monarchy even though they refrained from saying so publicly, had come out of nowhere to become a formidable force in Thai politics.

The palace and military top brass were terrified of Thailand’s youth, who were increasingly rejecting the traditional Thai values of obedience, deference and reverence for the monarchy. Most young people — and many older people too — despised Vajiralongkorn, an absentee monarch who spent almost all of his time in the vast Grand Hotel Sonnenbichl in Bavaria with a harem of more than 20 women, and who was frequently photographed cycling in very skimpy briefs or wearing a crop top and sporting fake tattoos, apparently indulging a fetish for public semi-nudity.

Meanwhile, open discussion and criticism of the monarchy was exploding on social media, and the ongoing protests in Hong Kong, also mainly youth-led, provided inspiration for disaffected Thais.

According to Piyabutr, shortly after the election a senior government figure told him that unless he and Thanathorn withdrew from public life and left the country for five years, Future Forward would inevitably be dissolved. It was only a matter of time.

In September 2019, Thanathorn and Piyabutr held secret talks with Apirat over dinner, trying to resolve tensions and seek some mutual understanding.

It didn’t go well. The following month, Apirat gave a hysterical speech in which he claimed a sinister alliance of former communists, leftist academics, corrupt politicians and foreign provocateurs was conspiring to destroy Thailand using “hybrid warfare” tactics that included fake news and propaganda.

He wept as he proclaimed his devotion to Vajiralongkorn, and burst into tears again while claiming his father Sunthorn was a war hero who was “shot by the communists while he was piloting a helicopter and protecting his nation”. In fact his father was a buffoon who was among a group of generals who deposed an elected government in a coup in 1991, and who regularly appeared in the gossip pages of Thai newspapers due to a public spat between his wife and mistress. There is no record of him ever being wounded in battle.

Apirat warned that Thailand’s stability could be disrupted by activists using similar tactics to the protesters fighting for democracy in Hong Kong. And he tried to smear Thanathorn by noting that a prominent politician had recently met Hong Kong democracy activist Joshua Wong, and pondering aloud whether they were in cahoots to cause chaos in their countries. Apirat didn’t name the politician, whose image was greyed out in the slide he displayed on screen, but everybody knew he was talking about Thanathorn.

Vajiralongkorn and Apirat had become so afraid of Future Forward and the risks of a Hong Kong-style uprising in Thailand that they decided to take decisive action.

The method they chose had been employed several times already by the palace in the 21st century to neutralise enemies without leaving obvious fingerprints — outsourcing the job to the Constitutional Court.

Thailand’s justice system has always favoured those with wealth and royal connections, but the courts became particularly politicised after King Bhumibol gave two speeches in April 2006 calling on judges to resolve the country’s political conflict. This heralded the beginning of an era of political judicialisation in which the Constitutional Court intervened numerous times to try to torpedo the political hopes of Thaksin Shinawatra — annulling general elections in 2006 and 2014, removing Samak Sundaravej as prime minister and then dissolving the People’s Power Party in 2008, sabotaging constitutional amendments in 2013, and dissolving the Thai Raksa Chart Party in 2019.

Now, Vajiralongkorn ordered the court to deal with Thanathorn and Future Forward.

The judges duly did what they were told. In November 2019, Thanathorn was stripped of his seat in parliament by the Constitutional Court for allegedly owning 675,000 shares in V-Luck Media, an obscure company whose only two publications, lifestyle magazine Who! and the Nok Air inflight magazine, had ceased publication two years earlier. The company was preparing to close, pending collection of some debts it was owed.

There was no conceivable way Thanathorn could have used his shareholding in this company to gain any kind of unfair advantage in Thai politics. He had managed to build up a huge following for himself and his party through shrewd use of social media. The claim that he could gain an advantage through a negligible shareholding in a zombie company that was no longer publishing any magazines, and had no influence even back in the days when it was publishing magazines, was patently absurd.

But when Vajiralongkorn wants something done, the deep state obliges.

Having decapitated the party by removing Thanathorn, the royalist elite turned its attention to destroying Future Forward.

A case accusing the party of links to a global conspiracy involving the mythical Illuminati secret organisation was so ridiculous that even Thailand’s pliant judiciary had to throw it out, but an opportunity arose in February 2020 when the Constitutional Court was due to rule on whether a 191.3 million baht loan from Thanathorn to Future Forward was an illegal donation. The whole case was ridiculous because the payment was clearly a loan, which was allowed, not a donation, but the palace ordered the judges to ensure a guilty verdict with a punishment as harsh as possible.

On February 21, 2020, as expected, the Constitutional Court dissolved the Future Forward Party and banned Thanathorn and other party executives including co-founder Piyabutr and spokeswoman Pannika Wanich from politics for 10 years.

The palace and military thought they had neutralised the threat from Future Forward and the new generation of Thais demanding change. They could not have been more wrong.

II. Wildfire

“This is not the end, but the beginning,” declared Piyabutr after the verdict. “This will spread like wildfire.”

He was right. The verdict provoked a remarkable wave of protests at university campuses and schools across Thailand, and Thai communities around the world.

The great irony of the events of 2020 in Thailand is that by trying to crush any prospect of a mass protest movement demanding democracy, Vajiralongkorn and Apirat had managed to achieve the opposite of what they intended. They had unleashed the very thing they were desperately trying to prevent.

On February 24, large “flash mobs” were held at Thammasat University, Chulalongkorn University, Ramkhamhaeng University, Kasetsart University, Srinakharinwirot University and Prince of Songkhla University. Within days there had been protests at more than two dozen universities. There were rallies at two prestigious Bangkok schools — Triam Udom Suksa School on February 27 and the all-girl Suksanari School on February 28.

Each institution had its own Twitter hashtag to organise rallies, and the three-finger “Hunger Games” salute was ubiquitous at the flash mob events. They were the biggest protests against the Thai regime since Prayut and his allies had seized power in a coup in 2014.

There was also an unprecedented new — and explosive — element in many of the protests: students held up signs and wrote slogans challenging the monarchy. The anger at Vajiralongkorn that had been simmering on social media was now overflowing into physical protests on university campuses.

Meanwhile, the coronavirus pandemic was sweeping the globe. The German state of Bavaria, where Vajiralongkorn and his vast entourage were living in a hotel in the Alpine resort town of Garmisch-Partenkirchen, announced an emergency lockdown on March 20, with hotels and restaurants closed, and residents only allowed to leave their homes for essential reasons. But instead of leaving Germany and heading back to Thailand, Vajiralongkorn continued his 13-year holiday in Bavaria.

On March 18 he had applied for a special permit from the Bavarian authorities to remain at the Grand Hotel Sonnenbichl. It was granted, with the justification that the king and his entourage were “a single, homogenous group of people with no changes”.

Vajiralongkorn’s life of luxury and hedonism in Bavaria was funded by Thai taxpayers. The new national budget bill, announced in March, included nearly 30 billion baht of spending on the monarchy — an extraordinary 0.93 percent of the total national budget. No other country in the world spends a larger share of taxpayer money on its royal family.

Outrage at the king’s behaviour exploded online after exiled historian Somsak Jeamteerasakul, one of the foremost experts and commentators on the Thai monarchy, published a tweet about Vajiralongkorn’s antics in Germany, with the hashtag #กษัตริย์มีไว้ทําไม — #WhyDoWeNeedAKing? Over the next 24 hours the hashtag was used more than 1.2 million times as Thais vented their disgust. It was the most overt online challenge the Thai monarchy had ever faced.

Furious about the unprecedented protests against him in Thailand and around the world, Vajiralongkorn ordered his notorious security chief Jakrapob Bhuridej to organise the murder of a Thai activist abroad to send a warning that open defiance of the monarchy must end. The victim they chose was Wanchalearm “Tar” Satsaksit, a 37-year-old activist living in exile in Phnom Penh. He wasn’t even a particularly vocal critic of the monarchy, but he was an easy target because of the lawlessness of Cambodia.

On June 4, 2020, he left his Phnom Penh apartment to buy meatballs at a roadside stall, while chatting on his mobile phone to his sister Sitanun in Thailand. Suddenly a black SUV pulled up and several armed men jumped out, grabbing Wanchalearm before driving away. Over the phone, his sister heard him repeatedly shouting: “I can’t breathe.” For thirty minutes she stayed on the call, listening to muffled noises, before the line went dead. Wanchalearm has never been seen again. He is presumed dead.

Like the dissolution of Future Forward, the enforced disappearance of Wanchalearm Satsaksit was another disastrous strategic blunder by Vajiralongkorn and his allies. They thought it would put an end to mounting opposition to the monarchy. Instead, it poured fuel on the flames.

There was uproar in Thailand. #saveวันเฉลิม quickly became the top hashtag on Thai Twitter with more than half a million tweets after the kidnapping, and #ยกเลิก112 soon started trending too — a call to scrap the archaic lèse majesté law used by the palace for decades to try to stifle dissent.

Posters and street art with Wanchalearm’s face appeared all over Bangkok and beyond. The Student Union of Thailand organised a flash mob protest at the skywalk beside the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre the day after Wanchaleram’s abduction. Police tried to disperse the crowd, citing the need for social distancing during the pandemic, but the protesters refused to be intimidated. Three days later dozens of people led by prominent activist Somyot Prueksakasemsuk gathered outside the Cambodian embassy in Bangkok, demanding answers. Rangsiman Rome, a democracy activist who had joined Thanathorn’s Future Forward movement and become an MP, raised the issue in parliament.

Reuters reported that Wanchalearm’s disappearance had “reignited protests against Thailand’s military-royalist elite”. It galvanised and radicalised the democracy movement, and dragged the reputation of the Thai monarchy to its lowest point in history. It was the moment when many younger Thais decided enough was enough. It was time to fight.

The second half of 2020 saw unprecedented mass rallies demanding reform of the monarchy. Protesters held banners with coded messages criticising Vajiralongkorn, and over time the slogans and images became increasingly bold.

In a watershed moment in Thailand’s political evolution, student activist Panusaya "Rung" Sithijirawattanakul took to the stage at a rally attended by thousands at Thammasat University’s Rangsit campus to read a 10-point manifesto for royal reform. Nobody had dared to do anything like this since a group of civilian bureaucrats and military officers rose up to end Siam’s system of absolute monarchy back in 1932.

In September, one protest at the royal cremation ground at Sanam Luang, right beside the Grand Palace, attracted more than 40,000 people.

Week after week through October, November and December, tens of thousands turned up to mass rallies demanding reform of the monarchy and military.

The regime responded with increasing violence. Police began routinely using tear gas and water cannons, and firing rubber-coated bullets, to disperse peaceful protesters. Off-duty police and soldiers, and thugs-for-hire from the provinces, were brought into Bangkok in trucks and buses ahead of rallies to intimidate protesters and try to provoke clashes. The increasingly paranoid Vajiralongkorn was bizarrely terrified of the prospect of protesters setting foot on “royal ground” so vast walls of shipping containers were constructed around royal sites ahead of protests. It vividly symbolised the monarch’s contempt for the wishes of the people.

In November 2020, Vajiralongkorn ordered Prayut to announce the resumption of prosecutions for lèse majesté under the draconian Article 112 of Thailand’s criminal code. The king had told the government and judiciary to suspend use of the law in 2017, a gesture apparently intended to create an impression of compassion and magnanimity, although it led to no substantive improvement in freedom of speech because critics of the monarchy were just prosecuted for sedition or computer crimes instead. But by the end of 2020, Vajiralongkorn was so worried he demanded hardline tactics, with lèse majesté being used unsparingly to lock up leading activists and decapitate the protest movement. Courts were also ordered to routinely refuse bail.

Protests continued throughout 2021. They were smaller in scale than the biggest rallies of 2020, but nevertheless were met with a heavy handed and violent response from riot police who often fired rubber-coated bullets at pointblank range. Some protesters became bolder and more audacious, defacing pictures of Vajiralongkorn with graffiti and sometimes setting them on fire.

The sheer number of activists charged with lèse majesté forced the regime to relax its blanket ban on bail — it would have damaged the image of the palace and government even more if scores of young people were being imprisoned without trial. So the authorities focused on the leaders of the democracy movement, in particular Anon Nampa, Panusaya “Rung” Sithijirawattanakul, Parit “Penguin” Chiwarak, Jatupat “Pai Dao Din” Boonpattararaksa, Benja Apan and Panupong “Mike” Jadnok. Some of them spent more than 200 days in jail during 2020 and 2021.

On August 10, 2021, in an extraordinary ruling, the Constitutional Court ruled that calls for royal reform from Rung, Penguin and Mike were an attempt to overthrow the monarchy. “Any actions that seek to undermine or weaken the institution show intentions to overthrow the monarchy,” the judges said in their ruling. Sunai Phasuk of Human Rights Watch called it a “judicial coup” and the BBC’s Jonathan Head said:

This ruling effectively closes down any space in Thailand for public discussion of the monarchy, and lays the three activists cited by the court open to charges of treason, which carries the death penalty.

Also in August, disaffected youths in the impoverished Din Daeng area of the capital began gathering after dark almost every night for months to battle police. They were mostly motivated by economic hardship, a lack of opportunities and anger at police brutality but they also wanted to protest against the Prayut regime, and some of them set pictures of Vajiralongkorn ablaze. They formed a loose protest group that called itself Talugaz, which roughly translates to breaking through tear gas. The name was also a reference to Pai Boonpattararaksa’s protest group Talufah, which means breaking through the sky, a symbolic term for challenging the monarchy.

By the end of 2022, mass rallies had mostly fizzled out. A few have been held since, but the extraordinary scenes of 2020 have not been repeated, for now.

There are several reasons — fatigue and exhaustion, the repeated arrest and detention of protest leaders, the disproportionate violence of the police response, and disagreements among different protest groups over tactics and strategy.

But the rise of a mass movement brave enough to openly demand reform of the monarchy has transformed Thailand. Things can never go back to the way they were before.

Evidence of the change in attitudes is everywhere. Hardly anyone bothers to stand up in cinemas now when the royal anthem is played before a movie. Young people who rushed to get tattoos showing their reverence for Bhumibol following his death in 2016 are now ashamed of them and are getting them covered up or removed. Social media is still buzzing with open criticism of the monarchy, despite the risks.

The era of reverence for the king is over forever.

III. Moving forward

The remarkable electoral success of the Move Forward party is a direct result of the profound societal change in perceptions of the monarchy and military in Thailand.

When Future Forward was dissolved and 16 of its top leaders banned from politics for a decade, the royalist elite hoped they had successfully dealt with the threat from the upstart party and Thailand could return to politics as usual, with corrupt coalitions of convenience governing the country and keeping the kingdom trapped in the same old status quo in which they profited at the expense of most of the population.

In a final news conference on the evening of February 21, 2020, Thanathorn removed the Future Forward lapel pin from his suit collar and handed it to Pita Limjaroenrat, an affable 39-year-old Harvard-educated businessman, who was his choice to lead the remnants of the party.

McCargo and Anyarat recount the moment in their book on Future Forward:

Pita declared that he was not a superstar like Thanathorn or Piyabutr, but that he and the remaining MPs hoped collectively to become a group of shining stars. The modest declaration clearly reflected Pita’s awareness that none of the remaining MPs could match the star power or personal charisma of the original leadership triumvirate — nor did they have nearly as many followers on Twitter.

Pita and his comrades took over a defunct political party founded in 2014, Ruam Pattana Chart Thai, and renamed it Move Forward. They unveiled a logo similar to Future Forward’s, and 55 of Future Forward’s 65 MPs joined the new party.

Pita and his colleagues in Move Forward were supposed to have no contact with the banned executives of Future Forward. But the new party’s secretary-general, Chaitawat “Tom” Tulathon, was an old friend of Thanathorn and acted as an informal go-between.

After its launch, it was unclear whether Move Forward would be able to muster much support among the electorate. In their book published in 2020, McCargo and Anyarat wrote:

It remained unclear how many Future Forward supporters would continue to support the Move Forward party, in the absence of the “stars” they fell in love with… The challenge for Move Forward was to retain the support of former Future Forward voters, many of whom had been enthralled by Thanathorn and Piyabutr — would they stick with a new version of the party under different leadership?

In an analysis for ISEAS in April 2020, Termsak Chalermpalanupap also argued that Move Forward faced an uphill struggle:

Pita and the Move Forward Party face daunting challenges: moving out of Thanathorn’s shadow; fund-raising under stringent constraints; and recruiting as many as 100,000 members from the disinterested populace in order to continue struggling for political reforms in parliament and to establish a nation-wide presence through participation in local government elections.

You can download the full analysis here:

ISEAS analysis

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More doubts were raised when Pita said in an early interview that Move Forward would be less aggressive and more pragmatic than Future Forward. Some supporters who had been inspired by the courage and idealism of Future Forward felt let down. According to McCargo and Anyarat:

In many respects, it made sense for Pita Limjaroenrat to succeed Thanathorn. He was also a proven entrepreneur with strong academic credentials and a social conscience. Like Thanathorn, he had inherited and successfully transformed a family business following the death of his father. Pita was bright, good-looking and well spoken, with a fan base of admirers and an easy social manner. But while Thanathorn's sincerity and idealism were beyond doubt, Pita was a more mainstream, pragmatic and technocratic figure. In the end, it was hard to imagine Pita setting the hearts of the young generation on fire the way Thanathorn and Piyabutr had done. Pita was a logical, if not an emotional, successor…

The Future Forward leaders had been activists, buzzing with an energy that the technocrats running Move Forward lacked. As leader, Pita adopted a relatively low profile, claiming he was trying to support his parliamentary colleagues to be more active.

But just like many other Thais, Pita became more radical as the extraordinary events of 2020 unfolded. Move Forward had to adapt to accommodate the aspirations of the millions of younger Thais who wanted real change, including reform of the monarchy.

Pita gave considerable leeway to two of the most radical MPs in his party — Wiroj Lakkhanaadisorn, who became Move Forward spokesman, and Rangsiman Rome, who first became widely known in Thailand as one of the leading student activists who courageously opposed the 2014 coup. Here is Rome with fellow activists at a protest outside the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre on the first anniversary of the 2014 coup:

Wiroj and Rome both made use of parliamentary privilege to expose the crimes and corruption of the government and ruling elite.

At a censure debate in parliament on February 25, 2020, Wiroj presented extensive evidence of systematic attempts by the military to spread disinformation — known as information operations or IO.

He presented a leaked document showing that the notorious Internal Security Operations Command played a key role in funding and conducting cyber warfare against activists, politicians, and academics working to promote the peace process in the Deep South. Wiroj accused prime minister Prayut Chan-ocha and his government of using government funds to harass the public and incite division. Other evidence included including a clip in which army officers confessed to their involvement in the IO campaign, private LINE chats among officers encouraging the dissemination of fake news, and leaked official government documents relating to the campaign.

The Bangkok Post said Wiroj’s debate performance had made him an “overnight sensation” and “shocked many viewers”. An unusually strongly worded editorial in the usually supine newspaper declared:

The exposure by Mr Wiroj startled those who watched the debate. The facts are simple but sickening. This seems to be a systematic effort to spread hate speech and fake news, and turn people from opposing political camps against each other. At the same time, the alleged IO promotes one-sided information that puts the government and the army in a positive light.

The revelations were partially confirmed later in the year when Twitter shut down 926 accounts linked to the Thai army which had been “engaging in amplifying pro-RTA and pro-government content, as well as engaging in behavior targeting prominent political opposition figures”. The move followed a detailed report by the Stanford Internet Observatory.

In another bold performance that won the support of many younger voters, during a parliamentary debate in June 2020, Rome accused the government of complicity in the disappearance of Wanchalearm Satsaksit in Cambodia:

The government doesn’t bother to find him. Since general Prayut Chan-ocha assumed power, there have been nine kidnappings like this so far. Seven of them remain missing, while two of them are confirmed dead without any explanation from the government.

The abduction and presumed murder of Wanchalearm was a crucial catalyst for the mass protests of 2020, and Rome’s intervention in parliament won Move Forward even more respect from pro-democracy Thais.

On February 10, 2021, Move Forward adopted its boldest position yet on the monarchy, proposing an amendment to the lèse majesté law to sharply reduce the maximum punishment and stop Article 112 being abused. Under the proposals, honest criticism of the monarchy would be allowed, only the Royal Household Bureau would have the authority to file lèse majesté complaints to the police, and the maximum penalty for defaming or threatening the king would be a year in jail, a fine of 300,000 baht, or both.

“This is a proposal that we think all sides can talk about, can accept and live with, and it will ease the political tension,” Move Forward secretary general Chaithawat said.

Inevitably, there was outrage from ultra-royalists, with Thai Pakdee party leader Warong Dechgitvigrom saying: “Some groups wanted to topple the monarchy, but they are telling society that they are only want to reform.”

The amendment had no chance of being passed by either chamber of parliament, with both the House of Representatives and the Senate dominated by performative royalists. In the end it didn’t even get that far — the amendment was rejected by the House of Representatives Secretariat and the Office of House Meetings on the grounds that it was unconstitutional, based on Article 6 of the charter which states: “The King shall be enthroned in a position of revered worship and shall not be violated.”

But it was a courageous move that won Move Forward even more popularity among Thais eager for reform. Even Future Forward had never tried to debate the issue of lèse majesté in parliament — everybody knew that the party’s leaders favoured reform of the law and the monarchy itself, but they thought it was too controversial an issue to raise for the moment. Largely thanks to the wider space for debate and discussion opened up by the protest movement during 2020, Move Forward was now even more radical than its predecessor.

Another censure debate was scheduled for February 16 to 19, 2021, with voting on February 20. Ahead of the debate, Wiroj said Move Forward would raise the government’s disastrous vaccine strategy which was dangerously overreliant on Siam Bioscience, a company owned by the king, and would also challenge the government on abuse of the lèse majesté law:

We will take to the floor and speak about the intimidation of protesters by the Emergency Decree and Article 112. Its enforcement is not transparent. Different MPs will discuss the issue from different perspectives…

We have studied lese majeste laws used in other countries and consulted with academics, so we’ll know what they think. The punishment has to be suitable for modern context. It cannot be disproportionately high.

None of the other opposition parties who claimed to be pro-democracy dared to broach such a sensitive subject. Pheu Thai and Seri Ruam Thai both ruled out raising the issue of the monarchy in the debate.

The regime was apoplectic about Move Forward’s plans. Chief government whip Wirat Rattanaset vowed that if opposition parties made any reference to the monarchy at all, by criticising the regime’s use of lèse majesté or accusing Prayut of exploiting Siam Bioscience’s royal ownership to shield himself from criticism over the botched vaccine rollout, all the government’s MPs would immediately protest and halt the discussion. Paiboon Nititawan, deputy leader of the ruling Phalang Pracharath Party, said the government would use Article 69 of the parliamentary rules, which forbids any legislator from “referencing His Majesty the King without due cause” to block any attempt to mention the monarchy. Going a step further, Sira Jenjakha, a government MP representing Bangkok, said that if any opposition censure motion contained a reference to the royal family he would file a lèse majesté complaint against all the legislators who signed it. Hardline royalist Warong Dechgitvigrom made a similar threat.

During the debate, which ran from February 16 to 19, Paiboon and Sira tried to silence Wiroj when he criticised vaccine procurement strategy and accused Prayut of using the lèse majesté law to hide behind the palace and avoid scrutiny of the vaccine plans. Sira even moved seats to be close to Wiroj as an intimidation tactic.

Meanwhile, in another bombshell speech during the debate, Rome exposed palace involvement in widespread corruption in police promotions.

He discussed how the palace is directly involved in police promotions via a system of “elephant tickets” — documents issued by Major General Torsak Sukvimol, head of the Ratchawallop Police Retainers of the Royal Guard 904, the special military and police force directly commanded by Vajiralongkorn. Torsak is the younger brother of Air Chief Marshal Satitpong Sukvimol, one of the king’s closest and most powerful advisors, who heads the Crown Property Bureau and is Lord Chamberlain of the Royal Household Bureau. According to Rome, Satitpong runs the elephant ticket scheme with Torsak.

Rome shared a document from 2019 in which Satitpong asked Vajiralongkorn to authorise promotions and awards for 20 police officers. This was granted, in a document signed by both King Vajiralongkorn and Queen Suthida, although in the version shared by Rome their signatures were redacted.

Rome also discussed how hundreds of police officers had been ordered to do special training for several months at Thaweewattana Palace to join the Ratchawallop Police Retainers, with anyone who refused punished by having to go on a lengthy disciplinary course.

Predictably, there was pandemonium in parliament as Rome gave his speech, and he was interrupted several times even though he only identified those involved in the elephant ticket scheme by their initials. Parliament speaker Supachai Phuso ordered him to avoid further mention of the monarchy. Prawit Wongsuwan, who has been involved in the corrupt sale of military and police promotions for years along with his brother Patcharawat, was so infuriated that he stormed out.

Daring to share these revelations showed incredible bravery. The regime had already threatened to file lèse majesté charges against him. Suphon Attawong, the former Red Shirt activist “Rambo Isaan” who changed sides and became assistant minister at the PM’s office, told reporters: “Our legal team has looked into it and concluded that the information is sufficient for prosecution under Article 112.”

The risks went far beyond lèse majesté. In a news conference after the debate Rome mentioned not only the Sukvimol brothers but also Vajiralongkorn’s murderous security chief Jakrapob Bhuridej and his brother, police Major General Jirapob Bhuridej, who heads the Crime Suppression Division. These men hate being in the spotlight and were certain to be enraged by Rome’s accusations. They have a history of violence against their enemies.

Rome acknowledged the danger he faces, saying:

I’m aware that this could be the most dangerous mission of my life, but since the people already chose me for this job, I have to carry out my duty to the best of my ability. I don’t know what will be the consequences of my action from now. I don’t know what waits for me in the next three days. I don’t know what will happen in the next three months. I don’t know if I’ll still be able to speak on behalf of the people. But no matter what happens, I don’t regret carrying out my duty today.

A year later, at a censure debate in February 2002, Rome again revealed explosive information. This time his revelations were about major general Paween Pongsirin, a senior police officer who was tasked with investigating the kidnap, extortion and trafficking of Rohingya refugees trying to reach Thailand and Malaysia by boat, after a mass grave was found on a mountain in Songkhla province.

Paween’s investigation led to the arrest of 91 people, most notably major general Manas Kongpan, a senior army officer and director of ISOC Region 4, who was later sentenced to 82 years in prison. Manas was extremely well connected with links to the palace and Prayut’s sidekick Prawit Wongsuwan. Paween came under intense pressure from powerful figures in the government, military and palace to abandon his investigation. Fearing his life was in danger, he fled Thailand in November 2015 and was granted political asylum in Australia in 2017.

Rome shared a copy of the statuary declaration Paween submitted as part of his asylum application in Australia. It was heavily redacted, probably because some passages discussed palace interference in the case and it would have been too dangerous for Move Forward to reveal this information.

Paween Pongsirin Statuatory Declaration

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On October 15, 2022, Pita held a news conference to outline the proposed reforms that would be central to Move Forward’s election campaign in 2023. They included amendment of the lèse majesté law, an amnesty for political prisoners and those convicted of violating Article 112, a ban on former military officers holding a cabinet position within seven years of their retirement, the abolition of compulsory military service, and the dissolution of ISOC.

An incident in March 2023 illustrated the increasing boldness of Move Forward in addressing the issue of lèse majesté.

Pita was preparing to give a speech at Laem Chabang Municipal Park in Chonburi Province when two young activists, Tantawan “Tawan” Tuatulanon and Orawan “Bam” Phuphong, climbed onstage.

The pair had come to prominence the previous year with a novel form of small-scale protest — they would conduct informal surveys in public places, carrying a large sheet of white card with a controversial question written on it, and handing out small stickers to passers-by for them to indicate their answer.

In February 2022 they held a survey in the Siam Paragon mall asking: “Do you think royal motorcades cause problems?” Siam Paragon is a particularly sensitive place to protest as it’s built on land owned by the king’s sister Sirindhorn, who also owns a large share of the mall. Along with seven other activists they were charged with lèse majesté, sedition and resisting arrest.

In January 2023 they went to Ratchadaphisek Criminal Court to file for revocation of their bail. They poured red paint over themselves, and declared they would return to jail where they would begin a hunger strike until all pro-democracy activists had been freed from detention.

Tawan and Bam went without food for 52 days, finally ending their hunger strike on March 11. Less than two weeks later they approached Pita on stage in Chonburi with a survey asking whether the lèse majesté law should be abolished or retained.

Pita welcomed them onto the stage and allowed them to address the crowd. He placed his sticker in the “Abolish” column, as did all 10 of the Move Forward candidates in Chonburi province who were with him on the stage. But he added: “However, I must apologise, but the party must push for amendments first.”

Thailand’s next general election was due to be held in 2023, and with Prayut’s unpopular government haemorrhaging support, Pheu Thai was confident of winning a landslide victory.

In a video call with Pheu Thai members in October 2021, Thaksin told them they would need to achieve an overwhelming electoral victory. The magic number was 375 seats, which would mean the 250 junta-appointed senators would be powerless to block Pheu Thai’s choice of prime minister. A landslide, Thaksin said, would allow Pheu Thai to form a government “without resistance from them”.

“A landslide win. That's the only thing that Pheu Thai wants,” declared Thaksin’s daughter Paetongtarn at the annual Pheu Thai assembly in April 2022.

It wasn’t a completely implausible aspiration — Thaksin’s Thai Rak Thai party had won 377 seats in the 2005 general election — but as the May 2023 polls approached, Pheu Thai began to lower its expectations a little, although it still expected a landslide.

“Pheu Thai is now seeking a popular mandate and aims to win at least 310 House seats to get rid of the Prayut regime and form a Pheu Thai government,” party leader Cholnan Srikaew told the Pheu Thai general assembly on March 9.

Most analysts, too, believed that Pheu Thai was on course for an overwhelming victory. Termsak Chalermpalanupap, a fellow at ISEAS who had previously spent two decades working at the ASEAN secretariat, wrote a month ahead of the election that Pheu Thai “looks certain to win the largest number of seats in the House of Representatives”.

Even usually reliable observers were convinced Pheu Thai was on track for victory. “The fact that the main opposition Pheu Thai Party is on course to win again is the most likely political outcome in the past 20 years,” Chulalongkorn University professor Thitinan Pongsudhirak predicted in March 2023. “Poll results not only point to another Pheu Thai triumph in two months, but a victory by too big a margin to be denied a role in the resultant coalition government.” Jonathan Head, the veteran BBC correspondent in Bangkok, wrote on May 11 — just a few days before the polls — that Pheu Thai was “far ahead of all its rivals”.

So the results of the election were a stunning surprise. As Allen Hicken and Napon Jatusriptak observed in an analysis published in the ISEAS journal Contemporary Southeast Asia: “Thailand’s general elections on 14 May 2023 marked a seismic shift in its political landscape.”

ISEAS analysis of 2023 election

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Since his launch of Thai Rak Thai in 1998, parties backed by Thaksin had won every single general election in Thailand by a wide margin. But not this time.

Move Forward, which had only been in existence for two years and had no nationwide network to mobilise votes, achieved an extraordinary victory, with an incredible 14.44 million party list votes, winning 151 seats in parliament and becoming Thailand’s biggest party in terms of MPs in the House of Representatives.

Pheu Thai came second with 141 seats, and the two political vehicles of the coup leaders who had fallen out with each other a couple of years before the election, Prawit’s Palang Pracharat and Prayut’s United Thai Nation, performed poorly with 40 and 36 seats respectively.

As Hicken and Jatusripitak noted:

This disruptive outcome was grounded in two key transformations in the political landscape: longstanding regional and political divisions, often driven by economic concerns and polarizing views on Thaksin, were transcended by ideological rifts over structural reforms related to the monarchy and the military; and traditional local power dynamics — underpinned by money politics, patronage networks and political dynasties — were challenged by social media and social movements which have become driving forces in shaping political discourse, party-building and campaigning.

Move forward soon assembled a coalition with Pheu Thai and six smaller parties — Prachachart, Thai Sang Thai, Seri Ruam Thai, Fair, Palang Sangkhom Mai and Pheu Thai Ruam Phalang — to create a formidable bloc with 312 seats in the 500-member parliament.

The coalition parties agreed on a 23-point Memorandum of Understanding setting out their policy priorities. It was unveiled at a packed news conference at the Conrad Hotel on May 22, a date chosen because it marked the ninth anniversary of the 2014 coup in which Prayut and Prawit overthrew the democratically elected Pheu Thai government of Yingluck Shinawatra and seized power for themselves, presiding over nearly a decade of political repression, rampant corruption and economic stagnation which voters had now decisively rejected.

This graphic from the Bangkok Post lists the 23 points:

Thailand’s royalist elite was shocked. But a conspiracy was already under way to sabotage Pita’s hopes of becoming prime minister.

IV. Voodoo magic

The popularity of Move Forward surged from mid-2020 onwards as mass protests demanding democracy and reform of the monarchy transformed Thailand forever. With the party’s policy platform of curtailing the clout of the monarchy and military gaining traction among millions of voters, the panicked deep state swung into action.

They hatched a plan to use the same tactic they had successfully employed to kick Thanathorn out of politics — they would try to get Pita disqualified as member of parliament via allegations that he unlawfully held shares in a media company.

This would require some voodoo magic, because iTV, the company in which Pita held a tiny 0.0035 percent stake, was a defunct former television station that no longer had an operating license, and had not broadcast anything or made any income from media operations for more than 15 years. The shares were not even in Pita’s name — they had been owned by his father, and passed into Pita’s possession because he was executor of the estate after his father died in 2006.

So for the conspiracy to work, iTV had to be somehow raised from the dead.

iTV was launched in 1995 as Thailand’s only independent television station, focusing exclusively on news, with Siam Commercial Bank, the Crown Property Bureau, the Pacific Communications firm owned by palace public relations advisor Piya Malakul and Nation Multimedia Group as major shareholders. To safeguard its independence, shareholders were barred from owning more than 10 percent of the company. But iTV began haemorrhaging money after the 1997 economic meltdown and soon became insolvent.

Desperate to shield the shareholders linked to the palace from damaging losses if iTV collapsed, the Democrat Party government led by Chuan Leekpai ended the 10 percent cap on shareholdings to try to attract a buyer. In 2000, Thaksin stepped in and his Shin Corp conglomerate bought most of iTV for $60 million.

He significantly overpaid — the assets of iTV were worth far less and the company was insolvent — but Thaksin had his reasons. He was able to further ingratiate himself with the palace by bailing out Siam Commercial Bank and the Crown Property Bureau, and it also gave him a platform to promote his bid to become prime minister in the 2001 general election.

Thaksin wasted no time in compromising iTV’s editorial independence, pressuring journalists to downplay negative news about his Thai Rak Thai party and give him favourable coverage. Some journalists resisted and 21 of them were fired. Shin Corp also gained permission to increase the amount of entertainment content on iTV and reduce the amount of news.

But by 2006, as Thailand’s establishment turned against Thaksin, iTV was accused of breaching regulations and hit with a fine of nearly $3 billion. After the military toppled Thaksin in a coup, the new government said in 2007 it would take over iTV if the fine was not paid, and appointed a new executive board made up entirely of civil servants.

In March 2007, iTV was taken off the air permanently and has not produced any media content ever since. The station was replaced in January 2008 by the newly created Thai Public Broadcasting Service, or Thai PBS. Its shares were delisted by the Stock Exchange of Thailand in 2014.

The only reason the company still exists is because it was fighting an interminable legal case against the Office of the Prime Minister to avoid facing the nearly $3 billion fine. It was just a zombie company, with no media operations, only still in existence because it was trapped in legal limbo. Last month, on January 25, the Supreme Administrative Court upheld earlier rulings that iTV did not have to pay the fine, meaning that it will probably soon be dissolved forever.

Pita Limjaroenrat’s father died in 2006. Pita acted as executor of the estate, and among the shareholdings belonging to his father was a negligible stake of 42,000 shares in iTV. According to Pita, he tried to sell the shares but was unable to find a buyer, and he didn’t think much about them in the years that followed because the company was defunct anyway.

As they sought a way to sabotage his political prospects, enemies of Pita found out he held he held 42,000 shares in iTV. They scented blood. Pita had declared the shareholding ahead of becoming a member of parliament in 2019, and it had not led to any problems for him because everybody knew iTV was defunct and no longer had any media operations. But if his enemies could somehow find a way to revive iTV’s status as a media company, however dishonestly, they would have a powerful weapon at their disposal should they ever need it.

Over the past few years, strange changes have been made to iTV’s description of itself in its annual reports. The 2021 report said — accurately — that iTV was now just “a holding company principally engaged in non-financial business”. But in 2022 the description was changed to say iTV was a “television media” company even though this had not been true for 15 years. In 2023 it changed again to “advertising media and returns from investments”. No credible explanation has been provided for these changes.

iTV’s latest annual general meeting was held on April 26, 2023. A couple of days beforehand, Nick Sangsirinavin, an election candidate for Bhumjai Thai who had previously been affiliated with Future Forward, posted a message on social media saying any politicians holding iTV shares should attend the AGM and also inform the Election Commission. He added that a party leader, whom he did not name, had 42,000 shares.

Nick had previously held iTV shares too, but transferred them to a colleague, Panuwat Kwanyuen, before registering as an election candidate. He had clearly discovered that Pita also owned shares, and was probably the initial source of the information at the centre of the plot.

In his capacity as a new iTV shareholder, Nick’s colleague Panuwat attended the AGM on April 6 and asked an odd question — “Does iTV still operate media businesses?”

According to a video of the meeting that was later uncovered, executive director Kim Siritaweechai replied: “As of now, the firm doesn’t do anything. It has to wait for the legal case to end.”

It’s clear Panuwat’s question was intended to elicit a reply that could help incriminate Pita. But he didn’t get the answer he was hoping for. Indeed, Kim explicitly confirmed iTV did not operate any media businesses any more.

But when the official minutes of the AGM were published, Kim’s reply had been altered to say: “Currently, iTV still operates in accordance with the company’s objectives, and submitted financial statements and corporate income tax as normal.”

This was the opposite of what he had actually said. Yet the minutes were signed off by Kim.

On May 10, four days before the general election, serial petitioner and Palang Pracharath Party election candidate Ruangkrai Leekitwattana submitted a complaint to the Election Commission claiming Pita was not eligible to be an MP because of his shareholding in iTV. As part of his petition he included iTV’s description of itself as being involved in media in its 2022 and 2023 annual reports, plus the doctored minutes of the AGM.

On June 9, the Election Commission threw out Ruangkrai’s petition, plus other petitions accusing Move Forward candidates of lèse majesté because they supported reform of Article 112. The Commission rejected them on a technicality because the petitions had been filed too late, after the candidates had already been approved.

But this was not the reprieve it appeared to be — far from it. In a sign that a coordinated conspiracy was under way at the behest of the palace, the Election Commission took the extremely unusual step of announcing that even though the petitions had been thrown out, it had seen enough evidence to suspect that Pita had applied to be an MP candidate in the election despite knowing he was not eligible because of his holding of media shares. The commissioners said they would investigate the matter and take appropriate action.

The conspiracy was proceeding smoothly until excellent investigative work by former iTV reporter Thapanee Eadsrichai blew a major hole in it. She managed to find a whistleblower at iTV to give her a video of the AGM. Shown on Channel 3 late in the evening on June 11, the footage clearly showed that the official minutes were inaccurate.

In a news conference the following day, Move Forward secretary-general Chaitawat Tulaton openly accused the party’s opponents of a conspiracy to bring down Pita using falsified evidence.

“It is unlikely that the alteration of the minutes was an accidental mistake or normal practice in preparing meeting reports,” he said. “When the public becomes aware of this, can it be understood that this was an intentional change to align with various documents that were subsequently altered?”

Saksith Saiyasombut provided a good summary of the shenanigans for CNA:

The biggest shareholder in iTV, with a controlling stake of 52.92 percent, is Intouch Holdings, which was previously Thaksin’s conglomerate Shin Corp before he sold his 49.6 percent stake to nominees of Singapore sovereign wealth fund Temasek in 2006. In 2021, Gulf Energy Development massively increased its stake and became the major shareholder in InTopuch. The founder and CEO of Gulf is Sarath Ratanavadi, officially Thailand’s fourth richest person (although the rankings don’t include the royals) who has a 35 percent stake in the company.

Sarath has links with Vajiralongkorn and is an old friend of Bhumjai Thai leader Anutin Charnvirakul. Anutin too has cultivated close links with the palace and has accompanied Vajiralongkon on shopping trips abroad.

Anutin and Palang Pracharat leader Prawit scrambled to distance themselves from the conspiracy, even though one of the key players in the plot, Nick Sangsirinavin, was a Bhumjai Thai election candidate and the mad petitioner Ruangkrai Leekitwattana was a candidate for Palang Pracharath.

“Bhumjai Thai will not waste time on such things because we don’t punch anyone below the belt,” Anutin insisted. “I hereby affirm that I and Sarath have been friends for 40 years or so. Forming a coalition government has nothing to do with my friendship with someone. Please do not mix up everything.”

But Sarath certainly had an incentive to keep Move Forward out of power. The party’s plans to tackle monopolies, promote more competition and reduce power costs would directly impact Gulf Energy. Move Forward had pledged to liberalise the power industry by allowing the public to buy electricity directly from producers, and also plans to renegotiate concessions. Gulf Energy gets most of its income from long-term contracts with the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand.

Following the revelations that the minutes of the meeting had been falsified, Intouch ordered iTV to conduct a thorough investigation.

The executive director and chairman of Intouch is Kim Siritaweechai. The executive director of iTV is also Kim Siritaweechai. The person who chaired the AGM, answered the question about whether iTV had any media operations, and then signed off on a falsified set of minutes was… Kim Siritaweechai. So, absurdly, Kim was ordering himself to investigate why he signed off on a bogus document, and then report back to himself with his findings.

Whether or not Bhumjai Thai or Palang Pracharath were involved, clearly somebody more senior than Kim Siritaweechai intervened after his initial answer at the AGM to get the minutes of the meeting falsified. So clearly some very powerful people were pulling the strings in the plot. All the evidence points back to the palace.

On June 15, iTV issued a statement intended to clarify the whole debacle. They improbably claimed that the reason for the discrepancy between Kim’s actual comments and the minutes of the AGM was because the minutes were just intended to be a summary rather than a verbatim account. They said the document was not intended to imply that iTV was still a media business. In fact its sole sources of revenue are investments and interest.

iTV statement

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It was a clear confirmation directly from iTV that it should not be considered a media company.

In any sane democracy this would have been the end of the matter. Not in Thailand.

Despite iTV stating unequivocally that it not a media company and has no immediate prospect of becoming one again, the super-sleuths of the Election Commission decided to plough on with their so-called investigation.

All the Election Commission’s crack team of investigators had to do was conduct a cursory examination of iTV’s revenue streams, read the company’s explicit confirmation that is is not currently involved in media operations, and draw the obvious conclusion that iTV is not currently a media company and nor has it been since 2007. Even the incompetent dotards at the Election Commission could surely have managed this in a couple of days of work and exonerated Pita.

Instead, their eventual decision, and the timing of announcing it, were designed to inflict maximum damage on Move Forward.

Parliament was scheduled to vote on who would become prime minister on July 13.

Although Move Forward had built an eight-party coalition that controlled 312 of the 500 seats in the lower house of parliament, Pita faced a daunting challenge in his bid to become premier because under the anti-democratic 2017 constitution drawn up by the junta, the 250 unelected senators handpicked by the generals also had the right to vote in the selection of the prime minister. The vast majority of them were implacably opposed to Move Forward and were determined to stop Pita.

According to a Nikkei Asia article:

An elder statesman told Nikkei he was doubtful that Pita could win enough votes from the military-appointed senate to take office. A senior courtier close to King Maha Vajiralongkorn, the country's ultimate power, also said the idea of a Move Forward government was “nuts” and predicted a long caretaker period under Prayuth.

With his coalition able to muster 312 votes, Pita needed 64 votes from the 250 senators to become prime minister. The only real hope for Move Forward was to stress its strength of support from millions of Thais, in the hope that some senators would balk at defying the democratic wishes of the electorate.

The party held a rally on July 9 in central Bangkok, with a large crowd packing the street and surrounding skywalks despite heavy rain.

Pita also tweeted a speech on July 11 in which he called for support from the Senate.

“The vote for prime minister isn’t about choosing Pita or the Move Forward party,” he said. “It’s about reaffirming that Thailand must move forward in line with the democratic system.”

But on July 12, just a day before the parliamentary vote, the deep state struck a decisive double punch against Pita and Move Forward that was more brutal than even the most pessimistic observers anticipated.

First, after weeks of pretending to scrutinise the issue, the commission chose to announce on the eve of the premiership vote that it had asked the Constitutional Court to rule on whether Pita should be disqualified as an MP because he held shares in a media company in violation of the constitution. The six election commissioners also requested that the court suspend Pita as an MP pending its ruling on the matter.

Election Commission Statement

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It was a clearly partisan intervention. The decision itself was ludicrous, because the evidence was clear that iTV was no longer a media company. But also the speed of the Election Commission investigation, the announcement on the eve of the vote in parliament, and the recommendation to suspend Pita, did not follow the same pattern as investigations into allies of the regime.

As pointed out on Facebook by Future Forward co-founder Piyabutr, in 2017/8 ago the election commissioners took 386 days to investigate a case against foreign minister Don Pramudwinai over questionable shareholdings owned by his wife, before requesting a ruling from the Constitutional Court on his eligibility for office. The court then took 70 days to decide to hear the case without suspending Don from office during the ongoing investigation.

In 2018/9 the Election Commission took 355 days to investigate a case against four ministers in the junta government accused of holding shares in companies that received government concessions, and the Constitutional Court then took 75 days to decide to hear the case without suspending the ministers during the investigation.

The commission took just 51 days to investigate Thanathorn, and the court took only seven days to decide to hear the case, ordering his suspension as an MP during their deliberations.

Pita’s case was processed even faster, Piyabutr noted — the Election Commission came up with its decision to refer him to the Constitutional Court, and recommend his suspension, in just 32 days.

A few hours after the Election Commission announcement, the Constitutional Court delivered the second shattering blow, announcing it had accepted an absurd petition seeking a ruling on whether Move Forward’s policy of seeking reform of Article 112 amounted to an attempt to overthrow the constitutionally enshrined system of so-called “democracy with the king as head of state”. In effect, judges were saying that the question of whether Move Forward was guilty of treason was worthy of consideration.

Constitutional Court Statement

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The timing of these announcements was no coincidence. They were clearly intended to snuff out any faint possibility that enough senators would vote for Pita to enable him to become prime minister.

“In the short run, this development increases the likelihood that Pita will not have enough support in parliament,” said Napon Jatusripitak, a visiting fellow at ISEAS in Singapore. “In the long run, it raises concerns about the erosion of democratic principles and the potential for widespread protests.”

An editorial in the usually staunchly pro-establishment Bangkok Post was scathing:

The latest development shows attempts by the conservative side to maintain power, despite its massive election loss. In doing so, they simply fail to respect voters’ wishes and have used every tactic, some egregious, to maintain the status quo.

Some senators who had pledged support for Mr Pita reportedly complained of intimidation and blackmail. Others confirm that there are bribe offers so that they would change their mind. Scandals and rumours that riddle the Upper House do not bode well for the institution and for democracy.

What is going on is bad for democracy and the country.

Meanwhile, activists held protests in several parts of the country. Some adopted a new symbol of dissent, placing stylised Thai letters representing the acronym for the Election Commission in a layout that resembled a penis and testicles.

V. Democracy denied

“This is a bit rushed, one day before the PM vote, it shouldn't have happened,” Pita told reporters after the devastating announcements of July 12.

Regardless of the merits of either case — the alleged media shareholding or the alleged treason — it gave wavering senators the cover they needed to abstain, which was equivalent to a vote against Pita as he needed 375 positive votes to win the premiership. Senators could simply say they did not feel comfortable voting for Pita with so much legal uncertainty hanging over him and his party. His bid for the premiership was now doomed.

Sure enough, on July 13, Pita fell well short of the voters he needed. He received just 324 votes, including only 13 senators, so fell 51 votes short. There were 199 abstentions, and 182 votes against him. Despite earning generous salaries for doing very little most of the time, 44 people didn’t even show up to vote.

“The powerful conservative forces arrayed against Pita have made some last-minute power plays,” said Chulalongkorn University’s Tahitian. “All the old elites see Pita and his Move Forward party as an existential threat.”

This graphic by Reuters illustrates the voting:

“I accept it but I'm not giving up,” Pita told reporters after the vote. “I will not surrender and will use this time to garner more support.”

Another vote on whether Pita should get the premiership was scheduled for July 19. Move Forward hoped to persuade enough senators to change their minds to win, although it seemed an impossible task.

But a vote was never held. Several conservative MPs and senators objected that renominating Pita breached parliamentary meeting regulation 41, which prohibits the resubmission of a failed motion during the same parliamentary session unless new circumstances have emerged. Rather than make a ruling on the issue, which was a key responsibility of his job, house speaker Wan Muhamad Noor Matha instead opened the issue up for debate by members of parliament and senators, and then called a vote on whether the nomination should be allowed.

In the joint sitting, 394 parliamentarians, most of them unelected senators, voted against Pita's renomination, 312 voted to support it, eight abstained and one did not exercise the right to vote.

During the debate, the Constitutional Court announced it had accepted the Election Commission’s request for a ruling on whether he should be disqualified as a member of parliament because of his shareholding in iTV, and ordered Pita to be suspended until they had ruled on the merits of the case. Once again, the timing of the announcement, on the day Pita was trying for a second time to get enough votes to become prime minister, was no coincidence.

Upon hearing the news, Pita began leaving the chamber, but came back to his seat when his colleague Wiroj pointed out that he should wait for an official letter. When that arrived during the afternoon, Pita told Wan Noor:

I’d like to take this opportunity to say goodbye to the parliament president until we meet again. I would like fellow members to use the parliament to take care of the people. I think that Thailand is different since May 14. If people have won halfway, the other half has yet to come, and even if I haven’t done my duty I ask all fellow members to jointly take care of the people. Thank you very much, Mr President.

He took off his MP identification card from his jacket, placed it on the desk in front of him, and walked out of the chamber.

In theory, Pita still had a chance of becoming prime minister despite being suspended because a Thai premier does not have to be a member of parliament. But in practice, it was never going to happen. The deep state had already made sure of that.

Numerous legal experts, including former constitution drafter Bowornsak Uwanno, questioned parliament’s decision to block Pita’s renomination. They said the constitution was paramount over parliamentary regulations, and the constitution allowed a candidate for the premiership to be nominated more than once.

Bowornsak is a royalist conservative, but he said he was disappointed with those who had blocked a second vote, writing on Facebook: “Although you are in the opposition, you should be aware of when to do away with being in the opposition to do the right thing.”

The next vote was scheduled for July 27. Move Forward had promised that if they were unable to secure the premiership for Pita after two attempts, they would make way and allow their coalition partner Pheu Thai to try to form a government. On July 21 they announced that they would not seek to renominate Pita.

“It is clear that conservative forces — from politicians, business monopolies and institutions — they will not let Move Forward become government,” party secretary-general Chaithawat told a news conference.

But no vote was held on July 27. Move Forward and some independent academics had petitioned the parliamentary ombudsman to seek a Constitutional Court ruling on whether Wan Noor had breached the charter by allowing parliament to block Pita’s renomination on July 19. Meanwhile, 115 law lecturers from 19 universities issued a joint statement saying Wan Noor’s actions had been unconstitutional. On July 24, the Office of the Ombudsman said any further vote should be postponed until a ruling had been made on the issue.

On August 2, Pheu Thai announced it was leaving the coalition with Move Forward and would seek to build a government without its former ally, to secure enough votes from its candidate for the premiership, Srettha Thavisin. Even before the announcement, Pheu Thai had been holding talks with royalist and military parties that it had previously promised to shun.

Move Forward, the party that had won the most votes and most seats in the election had been frozen out of being part of the next government. The royalist elite had won.

The next vote was tentatively scheduled for August 4, but was cancelled when the Constitutional Court announced it would consider the petition on whether preventing Pita being renominated breached the charter. The court said it would issue a preliminary ruling on August 16.

This meant that three months after the May 14 election, Thailand would still not have a prime minister. The kingdom remained trapped in political limbo.

The Constitutional Court’s ruling on August 16 was another clearly partisan decision. The judges made the absurd claim that because the petition had been submitted by the Office of the Ombudsman — which was the correct procedure — it was not valid because petitions must be submitted by somebody whose rights and freedom had been directly affected.

“None of the petitioners are the persons whose right and freedom were abused directly,” the court said. “As a result, the court unanimously rejects the petition.”

This clumsy chicanery enabled the judges of the Constitutional Court to evade having to declare that the actions of Wan Noor and the MPs and senators who voted to block Pita’s renomination were unconstitutional, which would have been an awkward setback for those in the deep state — including the judges themselves — who were conspiring to sabotage Move Forward.

The ruling allowed another vote on a prime minister to finally be held. On August 22, more than three-and-a-half months after the general election, Srettha Thavisin became Thailand’s new premier, with 482 votes from the 727 politicians. Move Forward declined to vote for him, but Pheu Thai’s old enemies in the military parties Palang Pracharat and United Thai Nation gave him their support in return for promises of cabinet positions.

On September 15, 2023, Pita resigned as leader of Move Forward, with Chaithawat taking his place. He explained that Move Forward could not be an effective opposition in parliament with a suspended leader at the helm:

The opposition leader is like the prow of a ship that directs the opposition’s performance in parliament, performs checks and balances on the government and pushes for agendas of change that are missing from the government’s policy.

Thailand’s electorate had voted for change but instead had been given another corrupt and unprincipled coalition. The democratic wishes of the people, who had voted overwhelmingly for genuine reforms and an end to military meddling in politics, had been disregarded.

On January 24 this year, after more than seven months of deliberations, the nine mouldering old men of Thailand’s Constitutional Court finally issued a ruling that they could easily have come up with within days of taking on the case on July 19 last year. They announced that Pita had been elected legitimately and can resume his political career.

Move Forward posted a video on TikTok with Pita saying he was looking forward to returning to work.

@mfp.official#พิธา มาแล้วค้าบบ 😊

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But while the Constitutional Court’s decision may have seemed a rare moment of sanity from the decrepit judges, in reality it was nothing of the sort.

Firstly, they didn’t need to ban Pita from politics. By suspending him at a crucial juncture in the selection of Thailand’s next prime minister, and keeping him out of parliament for months, they had already achieved their goal. They had prevented him from becoming premier and ensured Move Forward would not be part of the government.

Given the weakness of the case against him, a punitive ruling against Pita would just have led to more criticism of the court, and possibly renewed mass protests. By ruling in his favour, the judges could try to give the false impression that they were fair and impartial.

But more importantly, the judges also knew that they no longer needed to strip Pita of his MP status, because they had a much more effective weapon ready which could devastate Move Forward. A week after exonerating Pita, they unleashed it.

The second part of this series, discussing how the lèse majesté law was weaponised to target democracy activists and keep Move Forward out of power, will be published soon. To receive the article and all Secret Siam newsletters you can sign up here:

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“ผม พิธา ลิ้มเจริญรัตน์ ว่าที่นายกรัฐมนตรีคนต่อไปของประเทศไทย” หัวหน้าพรรคก้าวไกลวัย 42 ปีกล่าวขอบคุณผู้สนับสนุนหลังจากพรรคได้รับชัยชนะอย่างถล่มทลายในการเลือกตั้งวันที่ 14 พฤษภาคม “ประชาชนไทยได้แสดงเจตน์จำนงของตนเองแล้ว และผมพร้อมที่จะเป็นนายกรัฐมนตรีของทุกคน ไม่ว่าพวกเขาจะเห็นด้วยกับจุดยืนของผมหรือไม่ก็ตาม”

พรรคก้าวไกลสร้างความหวาดหวั่นให้แก่ชนชั้นนำไทยด้วยชัยชนะถล่มทลาย จากคะแนนเสียงปาร์ตี้ลิสต์ 14.4 ล้านเสียง หรือคิดเป็น 38 เปอร์เซ็นต์ของจำนวนผู้เลือกตั้งทั้งหมด พรรคกวาดคะแนนเสียงอย่างท่วมท้นในเขตกรุงเทพฯ โดยชนะการเลือกตั้งแบบบัญชีรายชื่อ 32 เขตจากทั้งหมด 33 เขต พรรคได้ที่นั่งในสภารวมทั้งสิ้น 151 ที่นั่ง ผลการเลือกตั้งครั้งนี้เป็นมากกว่าชัยชนะทั่วไป เพราะพรรคก้าวไกลต่างจากพรรคการเมืองใหญ่อื่นๆตรงที่ไม่มีการซื้อเสียงและไม่ได้พึ่งพาเครือข่ายบ้านใหญ่เพื่อให้ได้คะแนนเสียง

ผู้ชนะอันดับสองคือพรรคเพื่อไทยที่ก่อนหน้าหลายฝ่ายคาดการณ์ว่าจะได้รับชัยชนะแบบแลนด์สไลด์ แต่สุดท้ายกลับถูกพรรคก้าวไกลดับฝัน พรรคเพื่อไทยได้คะแนนปาร์ตี้ลิสต์ 29 เปอร์เซ็นต์ ได้คะแนนบัญชีรายชื่อค่อนข้างดี และได้จำนวนที่นั่งทั้งหมด 141 ที่นั่ง

ทั้งพรรคก้าวไกลและพรรคเพื่อไทยโหมแคมเปญปิดสวิชต์ “ลุง” หรือ ประยุทธ์ จันทร์โอชา และ ประวิตร วงษ์สุวรรณ ที่ทำรัฐประหารยึดอำนาจจากรัฐบาลประชาชนในปี พ.ศ.2557 คะแนนปาร์ตี้ลิสต์ของทั้งสองพรรคที่รวมกันเป็น 67 เปอร์เซ็นต์แสดงให้เห็นว่าคนไทยส่วนใหญ่ หรือ 2 ใน 3 ของประเทศต้องการออกจากยุคเสื่อมที่ปกครองโดยพวกไดโนเสาร์และต้องการประชาธิปไตยที่แท้จริง

ฐิตินันท์ พงษ์สุทธิรักษ์ อาจารย์ประจำคณะรัฐศาสตร์ สาขาความสัมพันธ์ระหว่างประเทศ จุฬาลงกรณ์มหาวิทยาลัย แสดงความเห็นในบทความของ Nikkei Asia ว่า “ยุคประชาธิปไตยที่ประชาชนร่วมกันสร้างขึ้นในเดือนที่ผ่านมากำลังถูกบ่อนเซาะจากกลุ่มอำนาจเก่า”

ฐิตินันท์กล่าวเพิ่มเติมว่า “กลุ่มอำนาจเก่ากำลังเร่งปิดสวิชต์พรรคก้าวไกลที่กำลังจะรื้อถอนโครงสร้างอำนาจที่มีศูนย์กลางเป็นสถาบันกษัตริย์เพื่อสร้างความเท่าเทียมในสังคมรวมถึงปฏิรูปศูนย์กลางอำนาจเดิมเพื่อสร้างโอกาสทางเศรษฐกิจและพัฒนาทักษะความสามารถของประชาชนที่ถูกฉุดรั้งแช่แข็งมาเป็นเวลานาน การปฏิรูปพุ่งเป้าไปที่การถกเถียงเรื่องบทบาทของกองทัพและสถาบันกษัตริย์”

น่าเสียดายที่พวกไดโนเสาร์ยังไม่อยากเผชิญความจริง พวกเขายังไม่ยอมแพ้

Secret Siam เป็นสื่ออิสระที่ได้รับการสนับสนุนจากผู้อ่านเท่านั้น คุณสามารถลงทะเบียนเพื่ออ่านบทความฟรี และหากต้องการอ่านเนื้อหาเอ็กซ์คลูซีฟ คุณสามารถสมัครสมาชิกได้เพียงเดือนละ 5 ดอลลาร์สหรัฐ หรือปีละ 50 ดอลลาร์สหรัฐ

สมัครสมาชิก

ขอบคุณสมาชิกทุกท่านครับ 🙏

ปั้นน้ำจนกว่าจะเป็นตัว

พรรคเพื่อไทยต้องตกตะลึงเมื่อถูกพรรคก้าวไกลเบียดร่วงลงไปเป็นที่สอง แต่เพื่อไทยก็รีบตั้งตัวและประกาศว่าจะสนับสนุนพิธาให้ดำรงตำแหน่งนายกรัฐมนตรี พร้อมยืนยันว่าจะไม่ตั้งรัฐบาลแข่ง

“พรรคเพื่อไทยขอแสดงความยินดีกับพรรคก้าวไกลที่ได้คะแนนเสียงส่วนใหญ่ โดยสัญญาว่าจะสนับสนุนพรรคก้าวไกลในการจัดตั้งรัฐบาล” ชลน่าน ศรีแก้ว หัวหน้าพรรคเพื่อไทยกล่าวในงานแถลงข่าวหลังวันจัดการเลือกตั้ง

มีการเชิญพรรคการเมืองเล็ก 6 พรรค ได้แก่ ประชาชาติ ไทยสร้างไทย เสรีรวมไทย เป็นธรรม พลังสังคมใหม่ และเพื่อไทยรวมพลัง เพื่อรวมกลุ่มจัดตั้งรัฐบาลเสียงข้างมากด้วยที่นั่งในสภา 312 ที่นั่งจากสมาชิกสภาทั้งหมด 500 ที่นั่ง

พิธาและพรรคร่วมฝ่ายประชาธิปไตยดำเนินการเตรียมตัวจัดตั้งรัฐบาลอย่างรวดเร็วเพื่อครองอำนาจบริหาร มีการจัดตั้งทีมทำงานในช่วงการเปลี่ยนผ่านซึ่งประกอบด้วยตัวแทนจากทั้ง 8 พรรคเพื่อจัดตั้งรัฐบาลแห่งประเทศไทย

พรรคร่วมเห็นตรงกันในการจัดทำบันทึกความเข้าใจ หรือ MOU ที่ระบุข้อตกลง 23 ข้อเพื่อผลักดันนโยบายสำคัญ งานแถลงข่าวจัดขึ้นที่โรงแรมคอนราดในวันที่ 22 พฤษภาคม ซึ่งเป็นวันครบรอบ 9 ปีของการรัฐประหารปี 2557 ที่ประยุทธ์และประวิตรปล้นอำนาจจากรัฐบาลยิ่งลักษณ์ ชินวัตรและพรรคเพื่อไทย ถือเป็นจุดเริ่มต้นของยุคตกต่ำทางการเมือง การคอรัปชั่นอย่างกว้างขวาง และสภาวะหยุดนิ่งทางเศรษฐกิจ ซึ่งประชาชนไทยแสดงเจตจำนงแล้วว่าต้องการการเปลี่ยนแปลง

ภาพ MOU ทั้ง 23 ข้อจาก Bangkok Post

ใน MOU ไม่ปรากฏประเด็นที่เป็นข้อถกเถียงในสังคมไทย 2 ข้อ ประเด็นแรกคือนโยบายหลักของพรรคก้าวไกลในการปฏิรูปกฏหมายหมิ่นพระบรมเดชานุภาพ หรือ มาตรา 112 เพื่อกำหนดบทลงโทษที่เหมาะสม แทนที่การลงโทษหนักเกินสมควร และกำหนดให้สำนักพระราชวังเป็นผู้แจ้งความฟ้องร้องได้เท่านั้น ซึ่งแตกต่างจากในปัจจุบันที่ใครก็สามารถแจ้งความได้และกฏหมายถูกตีความแบบไร้มาตรฐานและไม่เป็นธรรม

อย่างไรก็ตาม การปฏิรูปกฏหมายหมิ่นพระบรมราชานุภาพเป็นประเด็นที่อ่อนไหวในสังคมไทย แม้นักการเมืองจำนวนมากเห็นด้วยกับการปฏิรูปเป็นการส่วนตัว แต่ไม่มีพรรคใดกล้าหาญพอที่จะเสนอแก้ไขกฏหมายมาก่อน ข้อมูลหลุดจากโทรเลขของฑูตสหรัฐฯเผยว่า ทักษิณ ชินวัตร บอกกับนายเอริค จอห์น ฑูตสหรัฐฯผ่านการสนทนาทางโทรศัพท์ในขณะที่ลี้ภัยทางการเมืองในปี 2551 ว่าประเทศไทย “จำเป็นต้องถอดกฏหมายหมิ่นพระบรมเดชานุภาพออกจากกฏหมายอาญา ไม่เช่นนั้นประเทศไทยจะไม่สามารถเรียกตัวเองว่าเป็นประเทศประชาธิปไตยได้หากยังมีการบังคับใช้กฏหมายหมิ่นพระบรมเดชานุภาพ” แต่พรรคเพื่อไทยไม่เห็นด้วยกับการเปลี่ยนแปลงกฏหมายฉบับนี้ รวมถึงพรรคอื่นๆด้วยยกเว้นพรรคก้าวไกล พวกเขาคิดว่าหากออกมาเรียกร้องให้ปฏิรูป จะเสี่ยงต่อการเพิ่มความขัดแย้งทางการเมืองมากเกินไป

สิ่งที่ก้าวไกลเห็นด้วยกับพรรคร่วมอื่นๆคือ การไม่เสนอนโยบายล้มล้างสถาบันกษัตริย์หรือระบอบประชาธิปไตยอันมีประมหากษัตริย์ทรงเป็นประมุขของไทย แต่พิธากล่าวว่าพรรคจะเดินหน้าใช้ระบบรัฐสภาในการปฏิรูปมาตรา 112 แม้ว่าพรรคร่วมจะไม่เห็นด้วย (ในความเป็นจริง ประเทศไทยไม่ได้อยู่ในระบอบประชาธิปไตยอันมีพระมหากษัตริย์ทรงเป็นประมุขเนื่องจากมีการแทรกแซงทางการเมืองจากราชวงศ์ การปฏิรูปกฏหมายหมิ่นพระบรมเดชานุภาพจะนำพาประเทศให้เข้าใกล้ระบอบประชาธิปไตยอันมีพระมหากษัตริย์ทรงเป็นประมุขแบบเดียวกับสากลโลก)

พรรคก้าวไกลต้องการจะบรรจุข้อตกลงเรื่องการนิรโทษกรรมผู้ลี้ภัยและนักโทษการเมือง แต่ประเด็นนี้ถูกปัดตกโดยพรรคเพื่อไทย เหล่าผู้นำพรรคต่างกังวลว่าจะมีการเชื่อมโยงประเด็นนี้กับการวางแผนนำทักษิณกลับประเทศไทย (ซึ่งพวกเขากำลังทำอยู่) มากกว่าจะโฟกัสประเด็นปัญหาที่สำคัญกว่านั้น ครั้งล่าสุดที่เพื่อไทยพยายามผลักดันกฏหมายนิรโทษกรรมในปี 2556 ก็ถูกกลุ่มรอยัลลิสต์ฝ่ายขวานำมาใช้เป็นข้ออ้างเพื่อลงถนนประท้วง ซึ่งต่อมาพัฒนาไปสู่การรัฐประหารปี 2557 ในที่สุด

พรรคร่วมแต่งตั้งกรรมการ 14 ชุดเพื่อเริ่มเจรจาหารือว่าจะผลักดันนโยบายสำคัญของตนอย่างไร พิธาเป็นประธานกรรมการชุดที่ทำงานเรื่องการเปลี่ยนผ่านอำนาจจากรัฐบาลเก่าสู่รัฐบาลใหม่ ส่วนกรรมการชุดอื่นมุ่งแก้ปัญหาเรื่องราคาค่าไฟและพลังงานที่สูงขึ้น ผลกระทบของภาวะแห้งแล้งและสภาพอากาศแปรปรวนซึ่งเป็นผลจากเอลนินโย่ ความรุนแรงในสามจังหวัดชายแดนภาคใต้ การแก้ไขรัฐธรรมนูญ ปัญหามลพิษทางอากาศและสิ่งแวดล้อม ปัญหาเศรษฐกิจ การพัฒนาระบบดิจิตอล การยุติการคอรัปชั่น ปัญหาสาธารณสุข ความเหลื่อมล้ำทางเศรษฐกิจและสังคม และการปฏิรูปที่ดิน

พรรคก้าวไกลมุ่งมั่นจะเปลี่ยนแปลงประเทศไทยให้ดีขึ้น ความพยายามผลักดันแก้ปัญหาอย่างเร่งด่วนเป็นสิ่งที่น่าชื่นชม ซึ่งตรงข้ามกับความไร้เสถียรถาพและเฉื่อยแฉะของรัฐบาลยุคก่อนหน้า รวมถึงความไร้ประสิทธิภาพของรัฐบาลประยุทธ์และพวกตั้งแต่ปี 2557

แม้คำสัญญาและความตั้งใจจะดูน่าเชื่อถือ แต่การแสดงออกของพรรคก้าวไกลตั้งแต่หลังเลือกตั้งดูคล้ายหน้าฉากการแสดงเพื่อส่งพิธาให้เป็นนายกรัฐมนตรีคนที่ 30 ของไทยและส่งพรรคร่วมให้ได้จัดตั้งรัฐบาล ทั้งที่ในความเป็นจริงพวกเขายังอยู่ห่างไกลจุดหมายนี้อย่างมาก

พิธาและพรรคก้าวไกลกำลังใช้วิธี “ปั้นน้ำจนกว่าจะเป็นตัว” โดยการสร้างภาพลวงว่าพิธาจะได้รับเลือกเป็นนายกและพรรคร่วมจะได้ตั้งรัฐบาลอย่างราบรื่นไร้ข้อขัดแย้ง พวกเขาพยายามสร้างบรรยากาศและโน้มน้าวคนไทยว่าตนเองเป็นผู้ชนะการเลือกตั้งที่ถูกต้องตามครรลองและจะไม่มีใครกล้าฝ่าฝืนหรือขัดขวางไม่ให้พวกเขาตั้งรัฐบาลได้ ไม่เช่นนั้นจะเป็นการท้าทายให้ประชาชนลุกฮือในวงกว้าง พวกเขากำลังแสดงให้ทุกคนเห็นว่ามีแผนพัฒนาและปฏิรูปประเทศอย่างชัดเจนแบบที่ทุกคนใฝ่ฝัน โดยหวังให้ฝ่ายตรงข้ามรู้สึกหวาดหวั่นและไม่กล้าเสี่ยงเข้าขัดขวาง

แม้ว่าพิธาจะแสดงออกอย่างมั่นใจ แต่เขาก็รู้ดีว่ามีอุปสรรคใหญ่รออยู่เบื้องหน้าที่ขัดขวางไม่ให้เขานั่งเก้าอี้นายกรัฐมนตรี อำนาจกองทัพถูกท้าทายโดยพรรคร่วมที่เสนอนโยบายลดขนาดกองทัพและยกเลิกเกณฑ์ทหาร กรมตำรวจและศาลจะทำทุกวิถีทางเพื่อบ่อนเซาะการปฏิรูปประเทศของพวกเขา การรื้อโครงสร้างสถาบันใหญ่อย่างกองทัพ ตำรวจ และระบบราชการที่พรรคร่วมเสนอคือการข้ามเส้นที่ไม่เคยเกิดขึ้นมาก่อนในประเทศไทย และการต่อต้านอย่างรุนแรงกำลังก่อตัวขึ้นอย่างหลีกเลี่ยงไม่ได้

สิ่งที่อยู่เบื้องหลังสถาบันใหญ่อย่างกองทัพและระบบราชการที่กำลังปกป้องผลประโยชน์ของตนอย่างสุดกำลังคือ วังหลวง ซึ่งถือเป็นศัตรูตัวฉกาจต่อการปฏิรูปประเทศ กษัตริย์วชิราลงกรณ์เกลียดชังการปฏิรูปประเทศและต้องการขัดขวางทุกทาง อภิรัชต์ คงสมพงษ์ อดีตผู้บัญชาการทหารสูงสุดซึ่งปัจจุบันเป็นคนสนิทและได้รับความไว้วางใจมากที่สุดจากกษัตริย์ก็ไม่พอใจพรรคก้าวไกลและกลุ่มผู้ประท้วงที่นำโดยเยาวชน

ในเดือนตุลาคม 2562 อภิรัชต์ขึ้นบรรยายพิเศษสุดสะเทือนอารมณ์ เนื้อหากล่าวถึงกลุ่มผู้ไม่หวังดีประกอบด้วยอดีตคอมมิวนิสต์ นักวิชาการฝ่ายซ้าย นักการเมืองชั่ว และอำนาจแทรกแซงจากต่างชาติที่กำลังรวมหัวกันทำลายประเทศไทยโดยใช้ “สงครามไฮบริด” ผ่านการปล่อยเฟคนิวส์และโฆษณาชวนเชื่อ เขาร่ำไห้และประกาศความจงรักภักดีต่อวชิราลงกรณ์ และปาดน้ำตาอีกครั้งเมื่อกล่าวถึง สุนทร คงสมพงษ์ พ่อของเขาว่าเป็นฮีโร่สงครามที่อยู่ในเหตุการณ์ “เฮลิคอปเตอร์กองทัพบกตกสองลำซ้อน โดนยิงขณะปฏิบัติการกวาดล้างผู้ก่อการร้ายคอมมิวนิสต์” ทั้งที่ในความเป็นจริงพ่อของเขาร่วมก่อรัฐประหารและเป็นเสือผู้หญิงตัวยงจนเป็นที่เลื่องลือ รวมทั้งไม่เคยมีบันทึกหลักฐานว่าพ่อของเขาเคยบาดเจ็บจากการทำสงคราม อภิรัชต์กล่าวเตือนว่ากลุ่มนักเคลื่อนไหวทางการเมืองกำลังทำลายความมั่นคงของชาติด้วยวิธีเดียวกันกับกลุ่มผู้ประท้วงเพื่อปกป้องประชาธิปไตยในฮ่องกง

วชิราลงกรณ์และอภิรัชต์ไม่พอใจการก่อตั้งพรรคอนาคตใหม่ซึ่งต่อมาคือพรรคก้าวไกลที่นำโดย ธนาธร จึงรุ่งเรืองกิจ มหาเศรษฐีที่ได้รับความชื่นชมและศรัทธาจากผู้คนมากมาย หลังจากที่พรรคได้รับความนิยมอย่างถล่มทลายดังจะเห็นได้จากการเลือกตั้งในปี 2562 จนกลายเป็นพรรคใหญ่อันดับ 3 ในสภา ทั้งสองก็เดินหน้าสกัดดาวรุ่งอย่างต่อเนื่อง ทำให้ธนาธรและผู้นำพรรคอนาคตใหม่ระมัดระวังตัวอย่างมากในการแสดงออกที่จะไม่เป็นการท้าทายสถาบันกษัตริย์ แต่พวกเขาประกาศอย่างชัดเจนถึงความต้องการที่จะถอดกองทัพออกจากการเมืองและยุติวงจรการรัฐประหารในประเทศไทย

ตามที่วังได้มีบทบาทมาตลอดในศตวรรษที่ 21 วชิราลงกรณ์ส่งสัญญาณผ่านตัวแทนอย่างศาลรัฐธรรมนูญให้จัดการกับพรรคอนาคตใหม่ ในเดือนพฤศจิกายน 2562 ศาลรัฐธรรมนูญพิพากษาตัดสิทธิ์ธนาธรจากการเป็นสมาชิกสภาผู้แทนราษฎรด้วยเหตุผลว่าเขาถือหุ้นสื่อซึ่งขัดกับรัฐธรรมนูญฉบับ 2560 แต่วชิราลงกรณ์และอภิรัชต์ก็ยังไม่พอใจ พวกเขาต้องการลงดาบพรรคอนาคตใหม่

มีการกล่าวหาว่าพรรคเกี่ยวข้องกับองค์กรลับอิลลูมินาติที่เป็นทฤษฎีสมรู้ร่วมคิดระดับโลก ซึ่งเป็นเรื่องไร้สาระจนศาลรัฐธรรมนูญยังต้องตีตกไป แต่โอกาสที่สองก็มาถึงในเดือนกุมภาพันธ์ 2563 เมื่อศาลตัดสินว่าเงิน 191.3 ล้านบาทที่ธนาธรปล่อยกู้ให้พรรคอนาคตใหม่เป็นเงินบริจาคที่ผิดกฏหมาย ข้อกล่าวหานี้ไม่สมเหตุสมผลอย่างยิ่งเพราะมีหลักฐานชัดเจนว่าเงินดังกล่าวเป็นเงินกู้ ซึ่งพรรคสามารถทำได้ ไม่ใช่เงินบริจาค แต่วังมีคำสั่งให้ศาลรัฐธรรมนูญตัดสินลงโทษพรรคด้วยบทลงโทษรุนแรงที่สุด

ในวันที่ 21 กุมภาพันธ์ 2563 ดังที่ทุกฝ่ายคาดคิด ศาลรัฐธรรมนูญตัดสินยุบพรรคอนาคตใหม่และห้ามธนาธรและกลุ่มผู้บริหารพรรคยุ่งเกี่ยวกับการเมืองเป็นเวลา 10 ปี

การชนะเลือกตั้งอย่างถล่มทลายของพรรคก้าวไกลในเดือนพฤษภาคม 2566 สร้างความหวาดหวั่นให้วชิราลงกรณ์และอภิรัชต์ถึงขั้นสุด Nikkei Asia รายงานความเห็นของ “ข้าราชบริพารระดับสูงที่ใกล้ชิดกับกษัตริย์วชิราลงกรณ์” ว่าการมีรัฐบาลที่นำโดยพรรคก้าวไกลเป็น “เรื่องบ้าบอ” และคาดการณ์ว่าประยุทธ์จะดำรงตำแหน่งรักษาการณ์นายกรัฐมนตรีไปอีกนานในอนาคต

กลับมาที่อำนาจของพระราชวัง กองทัพและชนชั้นนำไทยกำลังเคลื่อนพลเพื่อขัดขวางไม่ให้พรรคก้าวไกลได้ครองอำนาจบริหาร สงครามได้เริ่มขึ้นแล้ว

แผนลับ#1

ไอทีวี เปิดตัวในปี 2538 ในฐานะสถานีโทรทัศน์อิสระหนึ่งเดียวในประเทศไทยที่เน้นการนำเสนอข่าวเป็นหลัก มีผู้ถือหุ้นหลักได้แก่ ธนาคารไทยพาณิชย์ สำนักงานทรัพย์สินส่วนพระมหากษัตริย์ เครือแปซิฟิคคอมมิวนิเคชั่น ซึ่งมี ปีย์ มาลากุล โฆษกสำนักพระราชวังเป็นประธานกรรมการ และเนชั่น มัลติมีเดีย กรุ๊ป เพื่อให้เสรีภาพสื่อในการทำงาน ผู้ถือหุ้นถูกกำหนดให้มีหุ้นได้ไม่เกิน 10 เปอร์เซ็นต์ แต่ต่อมาไอทีวีสูญเสียรายได้มหาศาลหลังวิกฤติต้มยำกุ้งในปี 2540 จนมีสถานะล้มละลายในที่สุด

ด้วยความพยายามที่จะปกป้องผู้ถือหุ้นฝ่ายวังจากความเสียหายในกรณีที่ไอทีวีล้มละลาย พรรคประชาธิปัตย์ภายใต้การนำของ ชวน หลีกภัย ยกเลิกกฎการถือหุ้นไม่เกิน 10 เปอร์เซ็นต์เพื่อดึงดูดนักลงทุน ในปี 2543 ทักษิณและเครือชินคอร์ปเข้ามากว้านซื้อหุ้นส่วนใหญ่ของไอทีวีในราคา 60 ล้านเหรียญสหรัฐ เห็นได้ชัดว่าเขาจ่ายแพงเกินมูลค่าสินทรัพย์ของไอทีวีซึ่งมีสถานะล้มละลายในขณะนั้น แต่ทักษิณมีเหตุผลในการลงทุนนี้ เขาได้สานสัมพันธ์กับวังโดยการช่วยให้ไทยพาณิชย์และสำนักงานทรัพย์สินส่วนพระมหากษัตริย์พ้นจากวิกฤติ และยังเป็นการสร้างชื่อเสียงให้ตัวเองเพื่อปูทางไปสู่การครองตำแหน่งนายกรัฐมนตรีในการเลือกตั้งปี 2544

หลังจากนั้นทักษิณใช้อำนาจแทรกแซงการทำงานของกองบรรณาธิการข่าวไอทีวีด้วยการกดดันให้งดนำเสนอข่าวด้านลบเกี่ยวกับพรรคไทยรักไทยและเพิ่มภาพลักษณ์ที่ดีให้ตัวเอง นักข่าวหลายคนออกมาต่อต้านและมีนักข่าว 21 คนถูกไล่ออก เครือชินคอร์ปเริ่มมีพื้นที่ในสื่อมากขึ้นจนทำให้ช่องต้องลดเนื้อหาข่าวลง แต่ภายในปี 2549 สถาบันหลักในไทยก็เริ่มตัดตอนอำนาจของทักษิณ ไอทีวีถูกกล่าวหาว่าละเมิดข้อบังคับและถูกสั่งปรับเป็นเงิน 2.1 พันล้านเหรียญสหรัฐ หลังจากที่กองทัพเข้ายึดอำนาจจากรัฐบาลทักษิณในเดือนกันยายน 2550 รัฐบาลใหม่ประกาศว่าจะยึดไอทีวี หากไม่มีการจ่ายค่าปรับ และแต่งตั้งคณะกรรมการบริหารใหม่ที่ประกอบด้วยข้าราชการทั้งหมด

ในเดือนมีนาคม 2550 ไอทีวีถูกถอดออกจากผังการออกอากาศทางโทรทัศน์อย่างถาวรและไม่ได้ผลิตสื่อใดอีกเลยนับแต่นั้น สถานีถูกแทนที่ด้วยไทยพีบีเอสในเดือนมกราคม 2551 หุ้นของสถานีถูกถอนโดยตลาดหลักทรพย์แห่งประเทศไทยในปี 2557 เหตุผลเดียวที่บริษัทยังไม่ปิดตัวลงเนื่องจากยังมีคดีความกับสำนักนายกรัฐมนตรีเกี่ยวกับเงินชดเชยค่าเสียหายจำนวน 2.89 พันล้านเหรียญสหรัฐฯ หากคดียังไม่สิ้นสุดไอทีวียังต้องดำเนินการต่อไป แต่มีสถานะเป็นเพียงบริษัทซอมบี้ที่ไม่มีการผลิตสื่อใดๆ

ไม่กี่วันก่อนการเลือกตั้งในวันที่ 14 พฤษภาคม นายเรืองไกร ลีกิจวัฒนะ “นักร้อง”และผู้สมัครสมาชิกสภาผู้แทนราษฎรจากพรรคพลังประชารัฐยื่นจดหมายร้องเรียนต่อคณะกรรมการการเลือกตั้งว่าพิธาไม่ผ่านคุณสมบัติในการดำรงตำแหน่งสมาชิกสภาผู้แทนราษฎรเพราะถือครองหุ้นสื่อไอทีวีจำนวน 42,000 หุ้น

มาตรา 98(3) ของรัฐธรรมนูญฉบับ 2561 และมาตรา 42(3) ของกฎหมายการเลือกตั้งสมาชิกสภาผู้แทนราษฎรห้ามมิให้บุคคลใดที่เป็นเจ้าของบริษัทสื่อหรือถือหุ้นในบริษัทสื่อสามารถเป็นสมาชิกสภาผู้แทนราษฎรได้ เหตุผลที่มีกฎหมายเช่นนี้ก็เพื่อป้องกันไม่ให้ ส.ส. มีอิทธิพลครอบงำสื่อหรือใช้สื่อเพื่อประโยชน์ส่วนตัวและโจมตีคู่ต่อสู้ทางการเมือง แต่กฎหมายนี้ก็ถูกใช้ในทางที่ผิดหลายครั้งเพื่อโจมตีนักการเมืองที่กลุ่มชนชั้นนำต้องการกำจัด

ในปี 2562 ศาลรัฐธรรมนูญพิพากษาตัดสินให้ธนาธรพ้นจากสภาพการเป็น ส.ส. ด้วยข้อหาว่าเขาถือหุ้น 675,000 หุ้นในบริษัท วี-ลัค มีเดีย ซึ่งเป็นบริษัทผลิตนิตยสารไลฟ์สไตล์ Who! และนิตยสารเพื่ออ่านบนเครื่องบินของสายการบินนกแอร์ ที่หยุดการผลิตไปสองปีก่อนหน้า บริษัทกำลังจะเตรียมปิดตัว และยังรอการชดใช้หนี้บางส่วน ไม่มีหลักฐานใดที่จะพิสูจน์ได้ว่าธนาธรใช้อำนาจของผู้ถือหุ้นผลิตสื่อเพื่อผลประโยชน์ส่วนตัวในทางการเมือง นอกจากนั้นเขายังแสดงหลักฐานว่าได้ขายหุ้นให้มารดาก่อนลงสมัครเลือกตั้ง ส.ส. แม้จะมีหลักฐานชัดเจน ศาลก็ตัดสินลงโทษเขา ซึ่งเป็นการลงโทษที่ไม่สมเหตุสมผลเพียงเพราะได้รับคำสั่งจากวชิราลงกรณ์

เมื่อความตื่นเต้นเรื่องการชนะการเลือกตั้งของก้าวไกลเริ่มจางลง ความสนใจของสังคมหันมาที่การร้องเรียนของเรืองไกร ซึ่งทำให้สถานะของพิธาเริ่มสั่นคลอน

สถานการณ์ของเขามีความคล้ายคลึงกับธนาธรหลายประการ เขาถูกกล่าวหาว่ามีหุ้น 0.0035 เปอร์เซ็นต์ในสถานีโทรทัศน์ที่ไม่มีใบอนุญาตออกอากาศมาเป็นเวลานาน ไม่มีช่องในโทรทัศน์ และไม่มีรายได้จากการผลิตสื่อมาเกือบ 15 ปี หนำซ้ำหุ้นเหล่านี้ก็ไม่ได้อยู่ภายใต้ชื่อของเขา มันเคยเป็นของบิดาของเขา และถูกส่งต่อให้เป็นทรัพย์สินของพิธาเนื่องจากเขาเป็นผู้จัดการมรดกหลังจากบิดาเสียชีวิตในปี 2549

ไม่มีใครคาดคิดว่าเรื่องการถือหุ้นจะกลายเป็นหอกทิ่มแทงพิธาในที่สุด แต่ในเมื่อศาลรัฐธรรมนูญเคยยอมทำเรื่องน่าอายในการรับใบสั่งจากวังให้ตัดสินลงโทษธนาธรมาแล้ว เหตุการณ์นี้อาจจะเกิดขึ้นกับพิธาอีกก็เป็นได้

ประวิตร โรจนพฤกษ์อธิบายว่า “เป็นเรื่องน่าขำ ไม่เนียน ปลอม แย่ และไร้สาระ”

เข็มทอง ต้นสกุลรุ่งเรือง นักวิชาการด้านกฏหมายจากจุฬาลงกรณ์มหาวิทยาลัย กล่าวว่า

แม้กรณีของพิธาจะดูไม่มีน้ำหนัก แต่ก็ยังมีความเสี่ยงที่จะถูกตัดสิทธิ์

“ในสถานการณ์ปกติ ผมมั่นใจว่าเรื่องนี้มีความเสี่ยงต่ำ แต่สำหรับบริบทประเทศไทยตอนนี้ผมคิดว่าอาจจะเกิดขึ้นได้” เข็มทองแสดงความเห็น

“น่าเสียดายที่ศาลรัฐธรรมนูญและคณะกรรมการการเลือกตั้งไม่มีความน่าเชื่อถือมากนักในสังคมไทย” เข็มทองกล่าว “ประชาชนคลางแคลงใจมาเป็นเวลานานกว่าทศวรรษแล้วว่าศาลถูกแทรกแซง ไม่เป็นกลางทางการเมือง และเป็นเพียงเครื่องมือของฝั่งสถาบันในการกดขี่ประชาชน และน่าเศร้าที่ทั้งศาลรัฐธรรมนูญและคณะกรรมการการเลือกตั้งก็เป็นเครื่องมือของอำนาจเหล่านี้ด้วย”

พวกกลุ่มไดโนเสาร์อำนาจเก่าใช้ข้อกล่าวหาเรื่องการถือหุ้นสื่อไอทีวีของพิธาเป็นเครื่องมือในการรักษาอำนาจ นายวิษณุ เครืองาม รองนายกรัฐมนตรี กูรูและที่ปรึกษาทางกฏหมายของรัฐบาล แย้มว่าอาจมีการจัดการเลือกตั้งอีกครั้งหากศาลรัฐธรรมนูญพิพากษาตัดสิทธิ์พิธา แม้ว่าคำกล่าวนี้จะไม่มีกฏหมายข้อใดรองรับ

ในวันศุกร์ที่ 9 มิถุนายน คณะกรรมการการเลือกตั้งปฏิเสธคำร้องของนายเรืองไกร และคำร้องอื่นๆที่มีต่อผู้สมัครพรรคก้าวไกลเรื่องหมิ่นพระบรมเดชานุภาพเพราะพวกเขาสนับสนุนการปฏิรูปกฏหมายมาตรา 112 โดย กกต. ให้เหตุผลว่าคำร้องเหล่านี้ถูกยื่นช้าเกินไปหลังจากที่ผู้สมัครได้รับการอนุมัติแล้ว

กกต. ไม่ได้กำลังวางตัวเป็นกลาง แต่แย่ไปกว่านั้น สัญญาณของแผนการสมรู้ร่วมคิดที่มีวังอยู่เบื้องหลังเริ่มชัดเจนขึ้นเมื่อ กกต. ประกาศว่าแม้คำร้องก่อนหน้านี้จะถูกปัดตก แต่มีการพบหลักฐานเพียงพอที่อาจจะตั้งข้อหาต่อพิธาว่าสมัครเป็น ส.ส. ทั้งที่รู้ว่าตนเองไม่ผ่านคุณสมบัติเพราะถือหุ้นสื่อ พร้อมกล่าวว่าจะมีการสอบสวนเรื่องนี้ต่อและจัดการตามความเหมาะสม

การลงสมัคร ส.ส. ทั้งที่รู้ว่าตนเองไม่ผ่านคุณสมบัติเป็นความผิดทางอาญามาตรา 151 ของกฎหมายเลือกตั้งของประเทศไทย พิธากำลังเผชิญกับสถานการณ์ที่ร้ายแรงกว่าการตัดสินของศาลรัฐธรรมนูญว่าเขามีคุณสมบัติจะดำรงตำแหน่ง ส.ส. หรือไม่ หาก กกต. สรุปว่าเขาทำผิดกฏหมายมาตรา 151 คดีจะถูกส่งไปที่ศาลอาญาและพิธาจะต้องพัวพันกับพิจารณาคดีขึ้นศาลเป็นเวลาหลายปี หากคดีเลยเถิดไปถึงศาลอุทธรณ์และศาลฎีกา และถูกตัดสินว่ามีความผิด เขาจะต้องรับโทษจำคุกระหว่าง 1 ถึง 10 ปี ปรับ 20,000 ถึง 200,000 บาท และถูกตัดสิทธิ์ทางการเมือง 20 ปี

ดังนั้นพิธากำลังเผชิญกับความเสี่ยงที่จะถูกศาลรัฐธรรมนูญตัดสิทธิ์และถูกดำเนินคดีจากศาลอาญา สมชัย ศรีสุทธิยากร อดีต กกต. กล่าวว่ายังมีแผนการอื่นที่สามารถขัดขวางพิธาไม่ให้เป็นนายกรัฐมนตรี “อาวุธหนักต่างๆ กำลังลำเลียงสู่สมรภูมิสนามรบ และไม่จบแค่ปืนต่อสู้อากาศยาน 151” สมชัยกล่าว

พิธาย้ำมาตลอดว่าเขามั่นใจว่าจะไม่ถูกตัดสิทธิ์หรือถูกดำเนินคดี แต่เขาก็ออกอาการหวั่นไหวเมื่อเขาโอนหุ้นไอทีวีให้กับญาติ

สถานการณ์ของเขาเริ่มดูไร้ความหวัง แต่ข้อมูลล่าสุดอาจช่วยพิธาให้พ้นจากการลงโทษจากข้อกล่าวหาเรื่องถือหุ้นสื่อ เมื่อสื่อเริ่มรายงานหลักฐานว่ามีขบวนการขัดขวางเส้นทางของพิธาสู่การดำรงตำแหน่งนายกรัฐมนตรี

การประชุมประจำปีของไอทีวีครั้งล่าสุดจัดขึ้นในวันที่ 26 พฤษภาคม ไม่กี่วันก่อนหน้าการประชุม นิกม์ แสงศิรินาวิน อดีตผู้สมัคร สส. พรรคอนาคตใหม่ก่อนย้ายไปสังกัดพรรคภูมิใจไทยในการเลือกตั้งครั้งล่าสุด โพสต์ข้อความบนสื่อโซเชียลว่ามีนักการเมืองที่ถือหุ้นในไอทีวีควรเข้าร่วมการประชุมประจำปีและแจ้งให้ กกต. ทราบด้วย เขายังระบุว่าผู้นำพรรคคนนั้น ซึ่งเขาไม่ได้เปิดเผยชื่อ มีหุ้นจำนวน 42,000 หุ้น

นิกม์เคยถือหุ้นไอทีวีเช่นกัน แต่ภายหลังโอนให้ผู้ร่วมงานชื่อ ภาณุวัฒน์ ขวัญยืน ก่อนลงสมัคร ส.ส.ในฐานะตัวแทนพรรคภูมิใจไทย นิกม์พบว่าพิธาถือครองหุ้นและไม่ได้มีการเปิดเผยต่อสาธารณะ (ไม่มีข้อมูลชัดเจนว่านิกม์โอนหุ้นให้ภาณุวัฒน์เมื่อไร แต่หากเขาถือครองหุ้นตั้งแต่ตอนเป็นผู้สมัครพรรคอนาคตใหม่ในปี 2562 เขาก็มีความผิดละเมิดมาตรา 151 เหมือนที่พิธาถูกกล่าวหา)

ในการประชุมประจำปี ภาณุวัฒน์ได้ถามคำถามที่น่าสงสัยว่า “บริษัทไอทีวี มีการดำเนินงานเกี่ยวกับสื่อหรือไม่ครับ” 

ตามวิดีโอการประชุม นายคิมห์ สิริทวีชัย ประธานกรรมการบริษัทตอบกลับว่า “ตอนนี้ บริษัทยังไม่มีการดำเนินการใดๆนะครับ ก็รอผลคดีความให้สิ้นสุดก่อน”

ชัดเจนว่าคำถามของภาณุวัฒน์จงใจให้ได้คำตอบที่อาจนำไปตั้งข้อหากับพิธาได้ แต่เขาไม่ได้รับคำตอบที่ต้องการ แท้จริงแล้ว คิมห์ได้ยืนยันอย่างชัดเจนว่าในปัจจุบันไอทีวีไม่ผลิตสื่อใดๆ

แต่เมื่อมีการเผยแพร่รายงานการประชุมประจำปี คำตอบของคิมห์ถูกแก้ไขเป็น  “ปัจจุบัน บริษัทยังดำเนินกิจการอยู่ตามวัตถุประสงค์ของบริษัท และมีการส่งงบการเงินและยื่นแบบภาษีเงินได้นิติบุคคลตามปกติ” ซึ่งตรงกันข้ามกับที่สิ่งเขากล่าวก่อนหน้านี้ แต่คิมห์ก็ลงนามรับรองรายงานการประชุม

นายเรืองไกรใช้รายงานการประชุมนี้มายื่นเป็นหลักฐานประกอบการร้องเรียนกับ กกต. ในวันที่ 10 พฤษภาคม หากไม่มีการค้นหาหลักฐานมาโต้แย้ง พิธามีความเสี่ยงสูงที่จะถูกตัดสิทธิ์การเป็น ส.ส. และถูกดำเนินคดีอาญา 

แต่แผนการนี้ถูกเปิดโปงโดย ฐปณีย์ เอียดศรีไชย อดีตนักข่าวของไอทีวีซึ่งสืบเสาะหาหลักฐานและแหล่งข่าวที่ให้วิดีโอการประชุมดังกล่าวกับเธอ วิดีโอนี้ถูกเผยแพร่ทางช่อง 3 เมื่อกลางดึกของวันอาทิตย์ ทำลายแผนการขัดขวางไม่ให้พิธาเป็นนายกฯ หัวข้อข่าว “คืบเดียวของพิธาสู่ตำแหน่งนายกฯ” ปรากฎบนหน้าหนึ่งของ Bangkok Post วันที่ 13 มิถุนายนหลังการเปิดเผยว่ามีการดัดแปลงรายงานการประชุมประจำปีของไอทีวี

วิโรจน์ ลักขณาอดิศร ส.ส. พรรคก้าวไกล เรียกร้องให้ไอทีวีออกมาชี้แจง “บริษัท ไอทีวี ต้องชี้แจงต่อสังคมว่าทำไมรายงานการบันทึกการประชุมถึงไม่ตรงกับคำตอบที่ประธานฯตอบในที่ประชุม” เขากล่าวเพิ่มเติมว่า “และที่สังคมต้องตั้งคำถามต่อก็คือ พฤติการณ์แบบนี้เข้าข่ายการทำรายงานการประชุมผู้ถือหุ้นเท็จ เพื่อใช้เป็นเหตุกลั่นแกล้งให้บุคคลอื่นต้องโทษคดีอาญา หรือไม่”

ผู้ถือหุ้นใหญ่ที่สุดในไอทีวีคือ บริษัท อินทัช โฮลดิ้งส์ จำกัด (มหาชน) ด้วยสัดส่วน 52.92 เปอร์เซ็นต์ หลังจากการเปิดโปงว่ามีการแก้ไขรายงานการประชุม อินทัชสั่งไอทีวีให้ดำเนินการสอบสวนอย่างจริงจัง ประธานกรรมการผู้จัดการของอินทัชคือ คิมห์ สิริทวีชัย ประธานกรรมการผู้จัดการของไอทีวีคือ คิมห์ สิริทวีชัย ผู้ที่จัดการประชุมสามัญประจำปี ตอบคำถามเรื่องการทำธุรกิจสื่อของไอทีวี และลงนามรับรองเอกสารการประชุมปลอมนั้นก็คือ... คิมห์ สิริทวีชัย แปลกแต่จริงที่งานนี้ดูเหมือนว่าคิมห์กำลังสั่งให้ตนเองสอบสวนเหตุการณ์ที่ตัวเองลงนามเอกสารปลอม ทั้งที่เรื่องนี้ไม่ได้ต้องการการสอบสวน เพราะเขาเพียงแค่ต้องออกมาอธิบายความจริง

อนุทิน ชาญวีรกุล หัวหน้าพรรคภูมิใจไทย พยายามหลบฉากไปจากแผนสมรู้ร่วมคิดนี้แม้ดูเหมือนจะพบร่องรอยว่าภูมิใจไทยมีส่วนเกี่ยวข้อง ข้อกล่าวหาต่อพิธาถูกปั่นโดย นิกม์ แสงศิรินาวิน ผู้สมัครจากพรรคภูมิใจไทย นอกจากนั้น ผู้ถือหุ้นหลักอีกรายของอินทัชคือ บริษัท กัลฟ์ เอ็นเนอร์จี ดีเวลลอปเมนท์ จำกัด (มหาชน) ที่มีหุ้นมากกว่า 42 เปอร์เซ็นต์ ผู้ก่อตั้งและซีอีโอของกัลฟ์คือ สารัชถ์ รัตนาวะดี มหาเศรษฐีที่รวยเป็นอันดับสี่ของไทย (การจัดอันดับนี้ไม่รวมราชวงศ์) ที่ถือครองหุ้น 35 เปอร์เซ็นต์ของบริษัท สารัชถ์มีเครือข่ายความสัมพันธ์กับวชิราลงกรณ์และเป็นเพื่อนเก่าแก่ของอนุทิน อนุทินเองก็มีความสัมพันธ์ใกล้ชิดกับวังและติดตามวชิราลงกรณ์ไปชอปปิ้งที่ต่างประเทศ แต่เขายืนยันว่าพรรคไม่มีส่วนเกี่ยวข้องกับเรื่องนี้

“พรรคภูมิใจไทยยืนยัน นั่งยัน นอนยัน ว่าไม่เคยเสียเวลามาทำอะไรกับเรื่องพวกนี้ เพราะว่าเราไม่ชกใต้เข็มขัดอยู่แล้ว” อนุทินกล่าว “ผมเป็นเพื่อนคุณสารัชถ์ 40 ปีแล้ว แต่เรื่องการทำงานรัฐบาล ไม่เกี่ยวข้องกัน อย่าไปผูกโยงครับ”

ประวิตรก็ปฏิเสธการมีส่วนร่วมกับเรื่องนี้แม้ว่าเรืองไกรจะเป็นผู้สมัครจากพรรคพลังประชารัฐ โดยยืนยันว่าเรืองไกรทำเรื่องนี้เป็นการส่วนตัวไม่เกี่ยวกับพรรค

สารัชถ์มีแรงจูงใจในการสกัดกั้นพรรคก้าวไกลจากการเป็นรัฐบาล เนื่องจากพรรคมีนโยบายจะทำลายการผูกขาด สร้างโอกาสการแข่งขันและลดรายจ่ายค่าพลังงาน ซึ่งเกี่ยวข้องกับการเสียประโยชน์ของกัลฟ์เอ็นเนอร์จี้โดยตรง ก้าวไกลเสนอแผนที่จะเปิดเสรีอุตสาหกรรมด้านพลังงานโดยการอนุญาตให้ประชาชนจ่ายค่าไฟโดยตรงจากผู้ผลิต และเจรจาข้อตกลงกับผู้ผลิตพลังงานใหม่ รายได้ส่วนใหญ่ของกัลฟ์เอ็นเนอร์จี้มาจากสัญญาผูกขาดระยะยาวที่ทำกับการไฟฟ้าแห่งประเทศไทย

ไม่ว่าพรรคภูมิใจไทยหรือพลังประชารัฐจะมีส่วนร่วมกับเรื่องนี้หรือไม่ คงต้องมีบุคคลที่ตำแหน่งสูงกว่า คิมห์ สิริทวีชัย อยู่เบื้องหลังการเปลี่ยนแปลงข้อความในเอกสารการประชุม ชัดเจนว่ามีการชักใยอยู่เบื้องหลังเรื่องนี้

ในระหว่างนี้ เรืองไกรกำลังยื่นอุทธรณ์ต่อการปฏิเสธคำร้องของเขาและยื่นเอกสารเพิ่มเติมให้กับ กกต. แต่ดูเหมือนว่าจะไม่ใช่หลักฐานที่เป็นข้อมูลสำคัญ

ในวันที่ 15 มิถุนายน ไอทีวีออกแถลงการณ์เพื่ออธิบายเรื่องราวทั้งหมด โดยอ้างว่าเหตุที่คำตอบของคิมห์ไม่เหมือนกับรายงานการประชุมเป็นเพราะรายงานการประชุมเป็นเพียงการบันทึกภาพรวมของการประชุมมากกว่าจะบันทึกตรงตามคำพูด และยืนยันว่ารายงานการประชุมไม่มีเจตนาจะสื่อว่าไอทีวียังดำเนินธุรกิจสื่อสารมวลชนอยู่ ในความเป็นจริง แหล่งของรายได้เดียวนั้นมาจากการลงทุนและดอกเบี้ย ข้อความดังกล่าวเป็นการยืนยันจากไอทีวีโดยตรงว่าไม่ควรถือว่าเป็นธุรกิจสื่อ

Itv Statement

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เมื่อแผนล้มล้างถูกเปิดโปงและไอทีวีได้ชี้แจงว่าไม่ได้ดำเนินธุรกิจสื่อสารมวลชนแล้ว ดูเหมือนว่าโอกาสที่พิธาจะถูกตัดสิทธิ์หรือดำเนินคดีลดน้อยลง แต่ก็ยังมีความเสี่ยงที่รออยู่ข้างหน้า

กฏหมายมาตรา 82 ของรัฐธรรมนูญปี 2560 บัญญัติว่า ต้องมีสมาชิกสภาผู้แทนราษฎร 50 คนหรือสมาชิกวุฒิสภาเพียง 25 คนถึงจะสามารถยื่นคำร้องต่อศาลรัฐธรรมนูญเพื่อตรวจสอบคุณสมบัติการเป็นผู้สมัคร สส. ของพิธา แม้ว่าหลักฐานที่มีอยู่จะอ่อนแอ แต่หากศาลรับเรื่องและดำเนินการพิจารณาคดี พิธาจะถูกระงับสิทธิ์เพื่อรอพิจารณาคดี หากถูกระงับ เขาจะไม่มีสิทธิ์ถูกเสนอชื่อเป็นนายกฯ และเมื่อเขาเป็นเพียงแคนดิเดตหนึ่งเดียวของพรรคก้าวไกล พรรคอื่น เช่น พรรคเพื่อไทย จะมีโอกาสเสนอชื่อแคนดิเดตนายกฯแทน สถานการณ์นี้ไม่เป็นผลดีต่อการผลักดันนโยบายก้าวหน้าต่างๆของพรรคอย่างแน่นอน

แผนลับ #2

ผู้นำพรรคเพื่อไทยต่างตกตะลึงเมื่อถูกพรรคก้าวไกลเขี่ยตกลงมาเป็นอันดับสองในการเลือกตั้ง แต่แทนที่จะจมอยู่กับความผิดหวัง เพื่อไทยกลับรีบประกาศว่าจะสนับสนุนพิธาเป็นนายกรัฐมนตรีและร่วมรัฐบาลกับก้าวไกล พรรคร่วมทั้งแปดต่างออกมาสร้างบรรยากาศของความพร้อมทำงานร่วมกัน แต่ความเป็นจริงที่น่าอึดอัดคือการที่อีกเจ็ดพรรคไม่มั่นใจกับการส่งพิธาเป็นนายกฯคนต่อไป

พรรคเพื่อไทยมีความกังวลเป็นพิเศษต่อนโยบายที่เป็นประเด็นอ่อนไหวในสังคมของก้าวไกลและมีความกลัวว่าในการเลือกตั้งครั้งต่อไปเสียงของผู้สนับสนุนหัวก้าวหน้าจะเทไปที่พรรคก้าวไกล แม้เพื่อไทยจะสร้างภาพลักษณ์ว่าเป็นพรรคสนับสนุนประชาธิปไตย แต่พรรคมีความเป็นอนุรักษ์นิยมสูง แต่ก็ไม่อนุรักษ์นิยมเท่าพรรค “ลุง” การผลักดันนโยบายของเพื่อไทยขาดความต่อเนื่องชัดเจนและยังมุ่งปกป้องผลประโยชน์ของตระกูลชินวัตรเป็นหลักโดยการทำทุกวิถีทางเพื่อพาทักษิณกลับบ้าน

เกร็ก เรย์มอนด์ อาจารย์ประจำหลักสูตรวิทยาลัยป้องกันราชอาณาจักร มหาวิทยาลัยแห่งชาติออสเตรเลีย (ANU) ได้สรุปความแตกต่างระหว่างเพื่อไทยและก้าวไกลไว้อย่างน่าสนใจว่า “เพื่อไทยเป็นตัวแทนความต้องการของประชาชนที่จะดึงผลประโยชน์เพิ่มจากระบบ ในขณะที่ก้าวไกลเป็นตัวแทนความต้องการของคนรุ่นใหม่ในการเปลี่ยนแปลงระบบ ความแตกต่างนั้นลึกลงไปในระดับวิธีคิด”

ผู้นำพรรคเพื่อไทยและร่วมอื่นๆ ไม่ได้ร่วมมือกับก้าวไกลก่อนหน้านี้เพราะพวกเขาไม่เห็นด้วยกับนโยบายที่พรรคนำเสนอ พวกเขากำลังกลืนไม่เข้าคายไม่ออกเพราะถ้าหากไม่สนับสนุนก้าวไกล ก็จะถูกมองว่าเป็นพวกไม่สนับสนุนประชาธิปไตยและอาจจะถูกลงโทษจากผู้สนับสนุนพรรคในการเลือกตั้งครั้งหน้า แต่ผู้นำพรรคเพื่อไทยหลายคนต่างหวังลึกๆว่าจะมีเหตุการณ์ที่ทำให้ก้าวไกลไม่ได้เป็นผู้นำจัดตั้งรัฐบาล ซึ่งจะเป็นการรักษาหน้าของพรรคและจะขึ้นมาจัดตั้งรัฐบาลแทนได้อย่างชอบธรรมโดยไม่มีพรรคก้าวไกล เพื่อไทยอาจอ้างว่าพวกเขาได้ทำทุกวิถีทางแล้วในการส่งก้าวไกลเป็นผู้นำจัดตั้งรัฐบาล แต่เมื่อสถานการณ์พลิกผันพวกเขาจำต้องใช้วิธีอื่นเพื่อรักษาผลประโยชน์ของชาติ

ผู้นำพรรคเพื่อไทยออกมาปฏิเสธอย่างชัดเจนหลายครั้งว่าไม่มีการเจรจาลับเพื่อตั้งรัฐบาลแข่งกับก้าวไกล แต่ก็เหมือนทุกครั้งที่พวกนักการเมืองหรือผู้มีอำนาจทำตัวแปลกและปฏิเสธอะไรก็ตาม พวกเขากำลังโกหก

ในความเป็นจริง ทักษิณ ชินวัตร และ ประวิตร  วงษ์สุวรรณ ได้วางแผนร่วมกันมามากกว่าสองปีด้วยดีลที่ว่าเพื่อไทยจะสนับสนุนประวิตรให้เป็นนายกรัฐมนตรีคนต่อไป และประวิตรจะตอบแทนให้ทักษิณได้เดินทางกลับบ้านโดยไม่ต้องถูกจำคุก บุคคลที่เป็นตัวกลางในการประสานดีลนี้คือ ธรรมนัส พรหมเผ่า มือขวาของประวิตรและตัวละครที่มักเกี่ยวข้องกับอาชญากรรม เขาเคยติดคุกในประเทศออสเตรเลีย 4 ปีจากข้อหาลักลอบขนเฮโรอีนเข้าประเทศ ซึ่งเขาปฏิเสธตลอดมาจนกระทั่งมีนักข่าวออกมาเปิดโปงบันทึกของศาล เขายังแต่งเรื่องว่าตนนั้นบริสุทธิ์เพราะผงที่ตำรวจออสเตรเลียยึดไปมันคือแป้ง ไม่ใช่เฮโรอีน เขายังเคยติดคุกสามปีจากข้อหาข่มขืนกระทำชำเราและฆาตกรรมนักวิชาการชายคนหนึ่งและถูกปล่อยตัวออกมาในที่สุด เขาสร้างวุฒิการศึกษาปลอมจากมหาวิทยาลัย Calumus International University ซึ่งเขียนวิทยานิพนธ์ยาว 12 หน้ารวมเชิงอรรถและบรรณานุกรมและมีผู้เขียนร่วมกัน 5 คน ในปี 2559 รายงานลับของกองทัพภาคที่ 1 ทหารรักษาพระองค์ระบุชื่อธรรมนัสเป็น 1 ใน 4 อาชญากรใหญ่ในกรุงเทพฯ เขาโกหกแม้กระทั่งเรื่องป่วยจนต้องเข้าโรงพยาบาลในปี 2562

ปริญญาเอกปลอม

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แม้ว่าจะมีประวัติเกี่ยวข้องกับอาชญากรรมและมีพฤติกรรมประหลาด ธรรมนัสได้กลายเป็นตัวประสานทางการเมืองของประวิตร เขาเป็นนักการเมืองสีเทาที่คอยทำเรื่องสกปรก เช่น ซื้อเสียง ติดสินบน ข่มขู่ รังควาน และแบล็กเมล เขาเคลมว่าตนเป็น “เส้นเลือดใหญ่ที่คอยหล่อเลี้ยงหัวใจของรัฐบาล” และโอ้อวดว่าไม่มีใครสามารถทำอะไรเขาได้เพราะเขารู้ความลับและดีลลับมากมาย เขาปูทางให้พลังประชารัฐชนะการเลือกตั้งทั้งระดับชาติและท้องถิ่นในเดือนธันวาคม 2563 และได้รับตำแหน่งรัฐมนตรีช่วยว่าการกระทรวงเกษตรและสหกรณ์และเลขาธิการพรรคพลังประชารัฐ ซึ่งมีอำนาจรองจากประวิตรที่เป็นหัวหน้าพรรค

แผนการโค่นประยุทธ์และพาทักษิณกลับบ้านถูกเปิดโปงในเดือนสิงหาคม 2564 ก่อนการอภิปรายไม่ไว้วางใจรัฐบาล ประวิตรและทักษิณวางแผนโจมตีประยุทธ์โดยการโน้มน้าวให้ผู้แทนพรรคพลังประชารัฐโหวตไม่ไว้วางใจประยุทธ์ร่วมกับพรรคเพื่อไทยและก้าวไกล ด้วยความช่วยเหลือของทักษิณ ประวิตรจะสามารถขึ้นเป็นนายกฯได้ และหลังจากนั้นประวิตรก็ใช้เครือข่ายอำนาจในหมู่ชนชั้นนำพาทักษิณกลับบ้านโดยไม่ถูกขัดขวางจากคู่แข่งในสภาหรือผู้ประท้วง

นี่เป็นเหตุผลที่ทำให้ทักษิณมั่นใจว่าเขาจะกลับบ้านเร็วๆนี้  "ผมกลับแน่" เขาประกาศกลางไลฟ์ในคลับเฮ้าส์ที่เขาใช้ชื่อแทนตัวว่า Tony Woodsome ในเดือนกรกฎาคม 2564 “แต่ขอบอกเวลาทีหลัง ยังไงไปประตูหน้าไม่ประตูหลังแน่นอนครับ" ข้อความดังกล่าวทำให้ทวิตเตอร์ลุกเป็นไฟด้วยแฮชแท็ก #พี่โทนี่กลับไทยแน่ ซึ่งมีการทวีตมากกว่าห้าแสนครั้งในช่วงหลายวันถัดมา

ธรรมนัสได้รับมอบหมายให้โน้มน้าวสมาชิกพลังประชารัฐให้แทงข้างหลังประยุทธ์ แต่เขาก็ทำพลาดเมื่อไม่สามารถเก็บความลับไว้ได้ ประยุทธ์รู้แผนนี้ไม่กี่วันก่อนการอภิปรายไม่ไว้วางใจ ซึ่งทำให้เขาตั้งรับการจู่โจมครั้งนี้ได้ ทีมของประยุทธ์กดดันและติดสินบนสมาชิกพรรคเพื่อให้สนับสนุนเขา ประยุทธ์ส่งข้อความตัดพ้อผ่านไลน์ถึงประวิตรหลังจากตกใจที่รู้ว่าถูกพี่ชายที่รักหักหลัง “ทำไม ส.ส. พวกนั้นไม่สนับสนุนผม ผมทำอะไรผิด ผมทำงานหนัก”

เมื่อถูกเปิดโปง ประวิตรปฏิเสธทุกอย่างและโยนความผิดให้ธรรมนัส ประยุทธ์ปลดธรรมนัสออกจากคณะรัฐมนตรีในเดือนกันยายน 2564 พร้อมกับ นฤมล ภิญโญสินวัฒน์ รัฐมนตรีช่วยว่าการกระทรวงแรงงาน ประวิตรยังเก็บธรรมนัสไว้ข้างตัวโดยมอบตำแหน่งเลขาธิการพรรคให้ อย่างไรก็ตามในเดือนมกราคม 2565 ธรรมนัสออกจากพลังประชารัฐหลังพ่ายแพ้การเลือกตั้งซ่อมในจังหวัดสงขลาและชุมพร

แผนโค่นประยุทธ์ในเดือนสิงหาคม 2564 เผยให้เห็นรอยร้าวระหว่างเขาและประวิตรอย่างชัดเจน ทั้งสองพยายามออกมายืนยันว่ายังมีความสัมพันธ์ที่ดีต่อกันในฐานะพี่น้องและไม่มีทางแยกจากกัน แต่ในความเป็นจริงความสัมพันธ์ของทั้งสองไม่มีวันเหมือนเดิมอีกต่อไป ประวิตรเผยธาตุแท้ว่าต้องการเป็นนายกฯและจะร่วมมือกับทักษิณเพื่อให้บรรลุเป้าหมาย คุณสามารถอ่านบทวิเคราะห์เจาะลึกเกี่ยวกับสถานการณ์ในเดือนสิงหาคม 2564 ได้ในบทความ “The plot that nearly toppled Prayut” 

ในเดือนมกราคมปีนี้ ประยุทธ์เข้าร่วมกับพรรครวมไทยสร้างชาติ เพื่อให้มั่นใจว่าเขาจะได้รับการเสนอชื่อเป็นแคนดิเดตนายกฯ ในขณะที่พลังประชารัฐจะเสนอชื่อประวิตร ความขัดแย้งระหว่างทั้งสองคนเปิดเผยชัดเจนมากขึ้น

ในเดือนถัดไป ธรรมนัสย้ายกลับมาอยู่กับพลังประชารัฐ และเจรจากับทักษิณอีกครั้งเพื่อตกลงเรื่องความร่วมมือระหว่างพลังประชารัฐและเพื่อไทย

ประยุทธ์เป็นรอยัลลิสต์แท้ที่ทั้งเกลียดและกลัวทักษิณ ส่วนประวิตรมีลักษณะประนีประนอมมากกว่า ประวิตรมีเครือข่ายความสัมพันธ์กับทักษิณมามากกว่าสองทศวรรษ ตระกูลวงษ์สุวรรณมีความใกล้ชิดกับครอบครัวของ พจมาน ณ ป้อมเพชร อดีตภรรยาของทักษิณ ในปี 2547 เมื่อทักษิณกำลังเผชิญกับวิกฤติการณ์สามจังหวัดชายแดนภาคใต้ ทักษิณจำต้องถอด ชัยสิทธิ์ ชินวัตร ลูกพี่ลูกน้องของตนออกจากตำแหน่งผู้บัญชาการทหารบกและแต่งตั้งประวิตรขึ้นมาแทน หากทักษิณเลือกแคนดิเดตคนอื่น ประวิตรคงไม่ได้มาไกลขนาดนี้ ทักษิณยังสนับสนุนให้ พัชรวาท วงษ์สุวรรณ น้องชายของประวิตรได้ดำรงตำแหน่งผู้บัญชาการตำรวจในปี 2551 ประวิตรคงไม่สามารถเจริญก้าวหน้าได้ขนาดนี้หากไร้ความช่วยเหลือจากทักษิณ

แม้ภายนอกดูเหมือนประวิตรจะมีความเป็นรอยัลลิสต์และทักษิณทำทีต่อสู้เพื่อประชาธิปไตย แต่ทั้งคู่ไม่ได้สนใจเรื่องอุดมการณ์ เพราะพวกเขาเป็นพวกปฏิบัตินิยมและเน้นการแลกเปลี่ยนผลประโยชน์ทางการเมือง สำหรับพวกเขาศัตรูที่เคยบาดหมางสามารถกลับมาเป็นเพื่อนกันใหม่ได้หากมีเรื่องที่สมประโยชน์กันทั้งสองฝ่าย การหักหลังและแทงข้างหลังเป็นเพียงส่วนหนึ่งของเกมการเมือง ประวิตรและทักษิณเคารพกันและกันในแง่ของความเก๋าเกม พวกเขาไม่เก็บมาคิดเป็นเรื่องส่วนตัว

กลุ่มชนชั้นนำไทยส่วนใหญ่ที่เกลียดกลัวทักษิณมากว่าสองทศวรรษเพิ่งเข้าใจว่าเขาไม่ใช่ตัวอันตรายที่จะมาทำลายอำนาจเดิมของพวกเขา ทักษิณเป็นเพียงไดโนเสาร์ตัวหนึ่งที่อาจจะมีความก้าวหน้ามากกว่าพวกอนุรักษ์นิยมคนอื่นแต่เขาไม่สนใจเรื่องการปฏิรูปโครงสร้างของสังคมไทย เขาไม่ได้เป็นภัยต่อกองทัพและสถาบันกษัตริย์ เขาเพียงอยากกลับบ้านและกลับสู่อ้อมกอดของกลุ่มชนชั้นนำเท่านั้น

พรรคก้าวไกลและกลุ่มผู้ประท้วงที่เรียกร้องการปฏิรูปสถาบันกษัตริย์ต่างหากที่เป็นคู่ปรับกับกลุ่มชนชั้นนำ ไม่ใช่ทักษิณ ดังนั้นในช่วงสองสามปีที่ผ่านมา กระแสการต่อต้านทักษิณกลับบ้านจึงอ่อนลงอย่างเห็นได้ชัด และประวิตรก็อาจจะรอดพ้นจากการถูกโจมตีหากเขาได้เป็นนายกรัฐมนตรีและออกกฏหมายนิรโทษกรรมให้ทักษิณได้กลับบ้านโดยไม่ต้องถูกดำเนินคดี อย่างไรก็ตามรูปการณ์ดังกล่าวอาจทำให้เพื่อไทยต้องหันหลังให้ก้าวไกล

ในช่วงหลายปีที่ผ่านมา ประวิตรทำงานหนักเพื่อเปลี่ยนภาพลักษณ์และสร้างความนิยมให้ตนเอง จากภาพลุงน่าเวทนาที่หาวตลอดเวลาและเดินไม่ค่อยไหวหากไม่มีใครประคอง เขาเริ่มแต่งตัววัยรุ่นมากขึ้น ไปหาเสียงด้วยชุดกางเกงยีนส์คาลวินไคลน์ แจ็คเก็ตกุชชี่ เสื้อฮิวโก้บอส และรองเท้าผ้าใบ เป็นต้น ในการปราศรัยและโพสต์ในโซเชียลมีเดีย เขาพยายามรีแบรนด์ตัวเองให้ดูเป็นผู้รักสันติที่จะสามารถประสานรอยร้าวของฝ่ายต่างๆที่บั่นทอนความมั่นคงของไทยมาเป็นเวลานาน

“พรรคพลังประชารัฐ ยินดีที่จะทำเพื่อประชาชน นำความเจริญมาสู่ประเทศชาติ ขอให้ทุกคนก้าวข้ามความขัดแย้งไปด้วยกัน”ประวิตรประกาศในการหาเสียงเดือนเมษายน

ความไม่พอใจของประชาชนจำนวนมากต่อผลงานของรัฐบาลประยุทธ์และเศรษฐกิจที่ถดถอยในช่วงสองสามปีที่ผ่านมาทำให้คนคาดการณ์ว่าเพื่อไทยจะชนะการเลือกตั้งครั้งนี้อย่างถล่มทลาย เพื่อไทยก็สร้างความเชื่อมั่นด้วยการให้ผู้นำพรรคแสดงเป้าหมายว่าจะสามารถคว้าเสียงส่วนใหญ่ในสภาได้ แต่เพื่อให้มั่นใจว่าพวกเขาจะสามารถจัดตั้งรัฐบาลเสียงข้างมากได้ พรรคต้องเชิญภูมิใจไทยและพลังประชารัฐมาร่วมรัฐบาล

เป็นเวลาหลายปีที่เพื่อไทยปฏิเสธที่จะทำงานร่วมกับภูมิใจไทยเพราะพรรคถูกชักใยจาก เนวิน ชิดชอบ อดีตพันธมิตรของทักษิณที่ภายหลังปี 2551ได้หักหลังเขาโดยการร่วมโค่นรัฐบาลพรรคพลังประชาชนที่มีทักษิณอยู่เบื้องหลังและส่งให้พรรคประชาธิปัตย์ที่นำโดย อภิสิทธิ์ เวชชาชีวะ ขึ้นเป็นรัฐบาลแทน แต่ก็เป็นปกติของการเมือง หลายปีผ่านไปหลังจากถูกเนวินหักหลัง ทักษิณก็ไม่ติดใจเรื่องอุดมการณ์และเห็นด้วยกับการร่วมรัฐบาลกับอนุทิน

ธรรมนัสยังคงเดินหน้าประสานงานระหว่างประวิตร อนุทิน และทักษิณ ในวันที่ 31 ตุลาคม 2565 ธรรมนัสเดินทางไปดูไบด้วยสายการบินเอมิเรตส์ ไฟลท์ EK375 เพื่อพบปะและเจรจากับทักษิณ แหล่งข่าวคนหนึ่งเดินทางไปในไฟลท์เดียวกันกับธรรมนัสและได้ถ่ายรูปเขาในขณะที่นั่งอยู่ในห้องรับรองของสายการบินที่ท่าอากาศยานสุวรรณภูมิ

ธรรมนัสเหมาะสมที่สุดที่จะเป็นตัวกลางในการต่อรอง เนื่องจากเขาเป็นคนเก่าแก่และได้รับความไว้วางใจจากทั้งประวิตรและทักษิณ เขาเข้าร่วมพรรคไทยรักไทยในปี 2542 และเป็นผู้สมัคร ส.ส. ของเพื่อไทยในปี 2557 ก่อนที่จะเข้าร่วมกับพลังประชารัฐในปี 2561 ประวิตรและทักษิณต่างไม่ถือสาประวัติอาชญากรรมของเขา เพราะทั้งคู่ก็มีเครือข่ายผู้คนที่คอยทำงานใต้ดินให้โดยที่ตนเองไม่ต้องเสี่ยงทำผิดกฏหมาย

เมื่อการเลือกตั้งใกล้เข้ามา ประวิตร ทักษิณ และอนุทินต่างมั่นใจว่าตนพร้อมจะจัดตั้งรัฐบาลร่วมกันจากการเป็นพรรคที่ได้ที่นั่งในสภาสูงสุด ประวิตรมีกลุ่ม สว. หนุนหลังซึ่งจะทำให้เขาได้เสียงมากพอที่จะดำรงตำแหน่งนายกรัฐมนตรีได้อย่างง่ายดาย เพื่อไทยจะได้ร่วมรัฐบาล และทักษิณจะได้รับการนิรโทษกรรมอย่างราบรื่น ประวิตรเตรียมตัวเป็นนายกฯ และทักษิณเตรียมตัวกลับบ้าน

แต่ผลการเลือกตั้งก็ทำให้ทุกฝ่ายตกตะลึง ไม่มีใครคาดว่าก้าวไกลจะได้ที่นั่งในสภาอย่างถล่มทลาย แผนของประวิตร ทักษิณ และอนุทินพังไม่เป็นท่า

เพื่อไทยกำลังกลืนไม่เข้าคายไม่ออกเพราะหากพรรคไม่สนับสนุนก้าวไกลก็จะถูกกระแสโต้กลับจากผู้สนับสนุนพรรคที่เลือกเพราะเชื่อว่าเพื่อไทยอยู่ฝั่งประชาธิปไตยและประชาชน และยังเสี่ยงต่อการเสียภาพลักษณ์และถูกลงโทษจากผู้สนับสนุนในการเลือกตั้งครั้งหน้า หากพวกเขาหักหลังก้าวไกล จะเป็นการเทคะแนนให้ก้าวไกลในฐานะพรรคคู่แข่งหัวก้าวหน้า ดังนั้นเพื่อไทยไม่มีทางเลือกนอกจากสนับสนุนก้าวไกล

แต่รูปการณ์นี้ไม่เป็นผลดีกับทักษิณเพราะเขาอยากจะกลับสู่อ้อมกอดของสถาบันอำนาจเก่าซึ่งเขาต้องสร้างภาพลักษณ์ว่าจะไม่เป็นปฏิปักษ์กับขั้วอำนาจเก่าและไม่เขย่าเรือให้โคลงเคลง ภาพลักษณ์ที่ทักษิณไม่อยากสร้างคือการเป็นพันธมิตรกับก้าวไกลที่มีนโยบายสุดโต่ง

นี่เป็นเหตุผลว่าเหตุใดแกนนำเพื่อไทยจึงหวังลึกๆให้พิธาไม่ได้เป็นนายกฯแม้ว่าจะออกมายืนยันว่าจะสนับสนุนเขา พวกเขาจะได้ไม่เสียหน้าที่จะได้ตั้งรัฐบาลแทนและให้ก้าวไกลไปเป็นฝ่ายค้าน

ตามที่อรุณ สรนชัยเขียนไว้ในบทความของ Thai Enquirer “มีความเป็นไปได้ที่เพื่อไทยจะตั้งรัฐบาลแทนโดยร่วมกับภูมิใจไทย พลังประชารัฐ ประชาธิปัตย์ และสมาชิกวุฒิสภา เพื่อไทยไม่ได้หักหลังก้าวไกลเพราะสามารถอ้างว่าได้ช่วยสนับสนุนทุกวิถีทางแล้ว เพื่อไทยอาจให้เหตุผลว่าจำเป็นต้องร่วมกับภูมิใจไทยและพลังประชารัฐไม่เช่นนั้นประยุทธ์และรัฐบาลรักษาการจะอยู่ต่อไปอีกนาน ในสถานการณ์นี้หากก้าวไกลไม่สามารถจัดตั้งรัฐบาลได้ เพื่อไทยก็อาจเล่นบทเหยื่อและอ้างว่าพรรคได้ทำตามกติกาแล้ว แต่เป็นก้าวไกลเองที่เป็นเด็กใหม่ที่เข้ากับเพื่อนไม่ได้ทำให้ตกขบวนการไล่ประยุทธ์”

ยังมีหลายวิธีที่จะสกัดกั้นพิธาไม่ให้เป็นนายกรัฐมนตรี แม้เขาจะรอดจากการถูกตัดสิทธิ์จากมาตรา 98(3) หรือถูกดำเนินคดีตามมาตรา 151 หรือถูกระงับการทำงานเพื่อรอการพิจารณาคดีเป็นระยะเวลานาน เขายังต้องเจอด่านต่อไปคือการต้องมีเสียงอย่างน้อย 376 เสียงจาก ส.ส. 500 คน และ สว. 250 คนเพื่อเป็นนายกรัฐมนตรี และไม่มีสิ่งใดรับประกันว่าเขาจะทำได้

ในปัจจุบันพรรคร่วมมีเสียงรวมกัน 312 เสียงซึ่งยังขาดอยู่ 64 เสียง ก้าวไกลอ้างว่าสามารถโน้มน้าว สว. ให้โหวตให้พิธาได้แล้วอย่างน้อย 40 เสียงซึ่งดูเหมือนจะเป็นการกล่าวเกินจริง และถึงแม้จะจริงก็ยังไม่พอ สว.ส่วนใหญ่เกลียดก้าวไกลเพราะไม่เห็นด้วยกับนโยบายของพรรคเรื่องกองทัพและสถาบันกษัตริย์ และจะไม่มีวันโหวตให้พิธา แม้แต่ สว. ที่เห็นว่าพิธาสมควรได้เป็นนายกฯเพราะพรรคก้าวไกลชนะการเลือกตั้งก็อาจต้องคิดหลายตลบว่าจะโหวตให้เขาดีหรือไม่ พวกเขากลัวจะถูกตราหน้าว่าเป็นคนทรยศต่อสถาบัน บางคนอาจจะงดออกเสียง ซึ่งนั่นก็ไม่เป็นผลดีต่อพิธา เขาต้องการคะแนนเพิ่ม

ตัวแปรที่สำคัญอีกหนึ่งอย่างคือเสียงโหวตจากพรรคภูมิใจไทย พรรคประชาธิปัตย์ และพรรคอื่นๆ ที่ผ่านมาพรรคเหล่านี้เคยยืนยันว่าพรรคที่ชนะการเลือกตั้งควรได้สิทธิ์โหวตคนของพรรคเป็นนายกรัฐมนตรี

ในเดือนมีนาคม อนุทินให้สัมภาษณ์กับสื่อหลังพบกับประวิตรว่า “นายกรัฐมนตรีต้องมาจากพรรคที่รวมเสียงได้เกินกึ่งหนึ่งในสภาผู้แทนราษฎร นี่คือการให้เกียรติประชาชนครับ อย่าไปบิดเบือนทั้งคำพูดและหลักการ” เขากล่าวต่อว่า “พล.อ.ประวิตร ท่านก็ยืนยันหลักการเดียวกัน คนที่ได้เสียงมากที่สุดในกลุ่มพรรคที่รวมเสียงข้างมากได้ก็ควรเป็นนายก”

หากอนุทินยึดตามหลักการที่ได้กล่าวมานี้ พิธาจะได้เป็นนายกรัฐมนตรี หากได้รับ 71 เสียงจากภูมิใจไทยก็เพียงพอแล้วที่จะรวมเสียงได้มากกว่า 376 เสียง โดยไม่ต้องพึ่งพาเสียงของ  ส.ส.พรรคอื่นและเสียงของ สว.

แต่มีหลักฐานที่ชี้ให้เห็นว่าอนุทินจะหาเหตุผลเพื่อเลี่ยงหลักการ มีหลายวิธีที่พรรคอย่างภูมิใจไทยและประชาธิปัตย์จะใช้เพื่อไม่โหวตให้พิธา หากประเด็นเรื่องการถือหุ้นสื่อไอทีวีไม่กระจ่าง พวกเขาก็อ้างได้ว่าพิธาไม่เหมาะที่จะเป็นแคนดิเดตที่ควรจะโหวตให้ หรือพวกเขาอาจจะอ้างว่าไม่สามารถโหวตให้พิธาได้เพราะไม่เห็นด้วยกับนโยบายสุดโต่งของก้าวไกลที่มีต่อสถาบันกษัตริย์ สว.ก็อาจจะใช้เหตุผลเดียวกันในการไม่โหวตให้เขา 

ถ้าวชิราลงกรณ์อยู่เบื้องหลังสิ่งเหล่านี้ พิธาจะไม่มีวันได้เป็นนายกรัฐมนตรีเหมือนดังที่ธนาธรและอนาคตใหม่เคยถูกตัดอนาคตมาแล้ว

เติมศักดิ์ เฉลิมพลานุภาพ กล่าวในบทวิเคราะห์การเมืองไทยของสถาบันเอเชียตะวันออกเฉียงใต้ศึกษาว่า “การชนะการเลือกตั้งเป็นพรรคอันดับหนึ่งถือเป็นความสำเร็จที่น่าทึ่งสำหรับพรรคใหม่ ที่ชนะสงครามผ่านอุปสรรคมากมายด้วยความกล้าหาญและกองทัพไร้อาวุธ” และกล่าวต่อว่า “อย่างไรก็ตาม การขึ้นสู่ตำแหน่งนายกรัฐมนตรีเป็นงานที่ยากยิ่งกว่า เป็นมหาสงครามที่พิธาไม่มีแต้มต่อและอาจจะพ่ายแพ้ในที่สุด”

ISEAS การวิเคราะห์

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มีข้อมูลชัดเจนว่าการเจรจาลับระหว่างเพื่อไทย พลังประชารัฐ และภูมิใจไทยยังคงดำเนินไปอย่างต่อเนื่อง มีผู้ถ่ายภาพ เศรษฐา ทวีสิน อดีตคนรักของ ยิ่งลักษณ์ ชินวัตร และหนึ่งในแคนดิเดตนายกรัฐมนตรีของเพื่อไทย คู่กับ อนุทิน และ จักรทิพย์ ชัยจินดา อดีตผู้บัญชาการตำรวจแห่งชาติซึ่งปัจจุบันเป็นสมาชิกพรรคพลังประชารัฐและเป็นคนสนิทของประวิตร ที่สนามคิงพาวเวอร์ในวันที่ 29 พฤษภาคมในการแข่งขันฟุตบอลนัดสุดท้ายก่อนปิดฤดูกาลระหว่างทีมเลสเตอร์ ซิตี้กับเวสแฮม

เศรษฐาอ้างผ่านทวิตเตอร์ว่าเขาพบกับอนุทินโดยบังเอิญที่สนาม “ส่วนคุณหนู ผมรู้จักกันเป็นการส่วนตัวอยู่แล้ว และบังเอิญเจอกันก็ยิ้ม ทักทายกันตามประสาคนรู้จักเท่านั้น ไม่มีคุยหรือดีลเรื่องการเมืองใดๆทั้งสิ้น ถ้าจะคุยกันคงไม่ต้องมาถึงอังกฤษมั้งครับ”

ผู้เข้าชมในการแข่งขันนัดนั้นมีจำนวน 32,183 คน ดังนั้นจึงยากที่จะเชื่อว่าเศรษฐาและอนุทินจะ "เจอกันโดยบังเอิญ" และนั่งใกล้กันขนาดนี้ เป็นไปได้ว่าทั้งคู่ถูกจัดให้นั่งใกล้กันโดย อัยยวัฒน์ ศรีวัฒนประภา ประธานสโมสรเลสเตอร์ แต่การที่ทั้งเศรษฐา อนุทิน และจักรทิพย์อยู่ที่อังกฤษในเวลาเดียวกันทำให้เกิดข้อสงสัย ในขณะที่ประวิตรอ้างว่าเขาไม่รู้เรื่องที่จักรทิพย์เดินทางไปอังกฤษ

ถ้าพรรคเพื่อไทย ภูมิใจไทย และพลังประชารัฐ ร่วมกับพรรคประชาธิปัตย์และพรรคชาติไทยพัฒนาจัดตั้งรัฐบาลตามข่าวลือ พวกเขาจะมี ส.ส. ทั้งหมด 297 เสียงในสภาบวกกับเสียงสนับสนุนจาก สว. พวกเขาจะสามารถเลือกแคนดิเดตนายกที่ต้องการได้อย่างง่ายดาย

ชูวิทย์ กมลวิศิษฎ์ อดีตมหาเศรษฐีเจ้าพ่ออาบอบนวดและมือแฉคอรัปชั่น เปิดโปงผ่านโซเชียลมีเดียว่ามีการแอบนัดพบกันเพื่อคุยกันเรื่องการจัดตั้งรัฐบาลระหว่างตัวแทนเพื่อไทย ภูมิใจไทย พลังประชารัฐ ประชาธิปัตย์ และชาติไทยพัฒนา ที่เกาะลังกาวี ประเทศมาเลเซีย แม้ชูวิทย์มักจะสื่อสารด้วยวิธีพิสดาร แต่หลายครั้งข้อมูลที่เขาเผยแพร่นั้นแม่นยำ

ในช่วงไม่กี่เดือนที่ผ่านมา ทักษิณประกาศผ่านสื่อหลายครั้งว่าเขาจะกลับประเทศไทยก่อนวันเกิดครบรอบ 74 ปี ในวันที่ 26 กรกฎาคม ในอดีตทักษิณเคยพูดหลายครั้งว่าเขากำลังจะกลับบ้าน แต่ก็ไม่เคยเกิดขึ้นตั้งแต่ปี 2551ที่เขาลี้ภัยทางการเมืองไปอยู่ดูไบและลอนดอน แต่คราวนี้ดูเหมือนว่าเขาจะพูดจริง และเป็นครั้งแรกที่เขาระบุเวลาชัดเจน แพทองธาร หรือ “อุ๊งอิ๊ง” ลูกสาวของเขาซึ่งเป็นหนึ่งในแคนดิเดตพรรคเพื่อไทยก็ออกมายืนยันหลายครั้งว่าบิดาของเธอจะกลับประเทศไทยเดือนหน้า

“ผมตัดสินใจแล้วว่าจะกลับบ้านไปเลี้ยงหลานภายในเดือนกรกฎาคมนี้ก่อนวันเกิดผมครับ” ทักษิณทวีตข้อความผ่านทวิตเตอร์ส่วนตัว “เกือบ 17 ปีแล้วที่ต้องพลัดพรากจากครอบครัว ผมก็แก่แล้วครับ”

ทักษิณกล่าวว่าเขายินดีจะเข้าสู่กระบวนการยุติธรรมเมื่อกลับถึงประเทศไทย เขาถูกตัดสินให้รับโทษรวมทั้งสิ้น 12 ปีจากคดีเกี่ยวกับการทุจริต 4 คดีซึ่งเขาอ้างว่าเป็นการกลั่นแกล้งทางการเมือง ในการสนทนาผ่านคลับเฮ้าส์เมื่อวันที่ 16 พฤษภาคม เขาถูกถามว่าพร้อมที่จะติดคุกหรือไม่ ทักษิณตอบกลับว่า “อะไรจะเกิดก็ต้องเกิด”

หากพรรคเพื่อไทยสามารถจัดตั้งรัฐบาลร่วมกับ ภูมิใจไทย พลังประชารัฐ ประชาธิปัตย์ และชาติไทยพัฒนาได้ เขาคงได้รับการนิรโทษกรรมอย่างรวดเร็ว แต่หากเพื่อไทยรักษาสัญญาและช่วยดันก้าวไกลให้เป็นผู้นำในการจัดตั้งรัฐบาล กลุ่มอำนาจเก่าก็จะตามจองเวรเขาต่อไป

สูญพันธุ์

“นี่ไม่ใช่จุดจบแต่คือจุดเริ่มต้น” ปิยบุตร แสงกนกกุล รองหัวหน้าและผู้ร่วมก่อตั้งพรรคอนาคตใหม่ กล่าวกับผู้สนับสนุนพรรคที่ไม่ยอมแพ้ต่อคำตัดสินของศาลรัฐธรรมนูญที่สั่งยุบพรรคอนาคตใหม่และตัดสิทธิ์ทางการเมืองของกรรมการบริหารพรรคเป็นเวลา 10 ปี ในวันที่ 21 กุมภาพันธ์ 2563 เขากล่าวว่า “นี่คือไฟลามทุ่ง” 

เขาพูดถูกต้อง คำตัดสินของศาลก่อให้เกิดการลุกฮือของกลุ่มผู้ประท้วงจากมหาวิทยาลัยและโรงเรียนทั่วประเทศไทย รวมถึงกลุ่มคนไทยทั่วโลก

ในวันที่ 24 กุมภาพันธ์ เกิดการรวมตัวของ "แฟลชม็อบ" กลุ่มใหญ่ที่มหาวิทยาลัยธรรมศาสตร์ จุฬาลงกรณ์มหาวิทยาลัย มหาวิทยาลัยรามคำแหง มหาวิทยาลัยเกษตรศาสตร์ มหาวิทยาลัยศรีนครินทรวิโรฒ และมหาวิทยาลัยสงขลานครินทร์ ภายในไม่กี่วันเกิดการประท้วงในมหาวิทยาลัยมากกว่า 20 แห่ง มีการเดินขบวนประท้วงที่โรงเรียนชั้นนำของกรุงเทพฯ 2 แห่งคือ โรงเรียนเตรียมอุดมศึกษาในวันที่ 27 กุมภาพันธ์ และโรงเรียนศึกษานารีในวันที่ 28 กุมภาพันธ์

แต่ละสถาบันมีแฮชแท็กของตนเองบนทวิตเตอร์เพื่อจัดการชุมนุม และการชูสามนิ้วที่มาจากภาพยนตร์เรื่อง Hunger Games กลายเป็นสัญลักษณ์ที่เห็นได้ในทุกแฟลชม็อบ การชุมนุมประท้วงในช่วงนี้ถือเป็นการประท้วงรัฐบาลครั้งใหญ่ที่สุดตั้งแต่ประยุทธ์และพวกยึดอำนาจทำรัฐประหารในปี 2557 นอกจากนั้นยังมีปรากฏการณ์ใหม่ที่น่าตื่นเต้นคือ การที่นักเรียนนักศึกษาเขียนป้ายวิพากวิจารณ์สถาบันกษัตริย์ ความไม่พอใจต่อวชิราลงกรณ์ที่เคยมีอยู่กระจัดกระจายในโซเชียลมีเดียเปลี่ยนเป็นการประท้วงบนถนนอย่างเป็นรูปธรรมในมหาวิทยาลัยและโรงเรียน

หลังจากการอุ้มหายและฆาตกรรม วันเฉลิม สัตย์ศักดิ์สิทธิ์ นักกิจกรรมทางการเมืองและเพื่อนของผมในเดือนมิถุนายน 2563 นักเรียน นักศึกษา และผู้สนับสนุนประชาธิปไตยต่างออกมาประท้วงอย่างกว้างขวาง

เหตุการณ์ที่ไม่คาดฝันในปี 2563 เหล่านี้เปลี่ยนแปลงประเทศไทยไปตลอดกาล เป็นครั้งแรกที่ในการประท้วงใหญ่มีการวิพากษ์วิจารณ์และเรียกร้องการปฏิรูปสถาบันอย่างเปิดเผย พวกไดโนเสาร์ต่างตื่นตะลึงและหวาดกลัว

ความย้อนแย้งของปรากฏการณ์ในปี 2563 ในประเทศไทยคือ แม้ว่าวชิราลงกรณ์และอภิรัชต์พยายามจะปราบปรามและทำลายการประท้วงของกลุ่มผู้เรียกร้องประชาธิปไตย พวกเขากลับได้ผลที่ตรงกันข้าม เพราะพวกเขาได้ปลดปล่อยสิ่งที่พยายามจะกักขังมาตลอด

ความสำเร็จของพรรคก้าวไกลในการเลือกตั้งเดือนพฤษภาคม 2566 เป็นผลจากการที่รัฐบาลทหารใช้วิธีการรุนแรงเพื่อทำลายอนาคตใหม่และการไม่รับฟังเสียงเรียกร้องของประชาชนที่ต้องการปฏิรูปประเทศ

หากวชิราลงกรณ์และอภิรัชต์ รวมถึงพวกไดโนเสาร์ สว. คณะกรรมการการเลือกตั้ง และศาลยังดึงดันจะขัดขวางพิธา สวนกระแส 14 ล้านเสียงที่ก้าวไกลได้มา ก็ถือว่าเป็นการตัดสินใจที่บ้าระห่ำที่จะนำไปสู่การสูญพันธุ์ของตัวเอง

หากกลุ่มไดโนเสาร์ยังดึงดัน จะเกิดการประท้วงครั้งใหญ่ อานนท์ นำภา และ สมยศ พฤกษาเกษมสุข นักกิจกรรมทางการเมืองประกาศว่าประชาชนเป็นหมื่นพร้อมลงถนนหากประชาธิปไตยถูกทำลาย หากดูจากความไว้วางใจที่ประชาชนมอบให้ก้าวไกล ถ้าพรรคไม่ได้เป็นผู้นำรัฐบาล จะเกิดความไม่พอใจในวงกว้าง ไม่ใช่แค่ภายในกลุ่มเยาวชนและนักกิจกรรมทางการเมือง แต่จากทั้งสังคมไทย 14 ล้านเสียงที่ก้าวไกลได้มาจากการเลือกตั้งเป็นเครื่องพิสูจน์ว่าความนิยมของพวกเขาไม่ได้จำกัดอยู่แค่ในกลุ่มคนหัวก้าวหน้า แต่ขยายไปในทุกกลุ่มอายุและทุกชนชั้น

ความพยายามในการขัดขวางพิธาและพรรคก้าวไกลที่ได้รับเสียงข้างมากไม่ให้จัดตั้งรัฐบาลจะนำไปสู่ “วิกฤติการเมือง” สมยศกล่าวในขณะที่ชุมนุมประท้วงหน้าสำนักงานคณะกรรมการการเลือกตั้ง “การร้องเรียนและการรับเรื่องเป็นไปในทิศทางที่มีเจตนาร้ายและเป็นการโค่นล้มประชาธิปไตย”

พวกไดโนเสาร์จะบ้าระห่ำและดื้อดึงจะเสี่ยงให้เกิดการประท้วงครั้งใหญ่ที่จะทำลายอำนาจของตัวเองและสถาบันกษัตริย์ไปตลอดกาลหรือไม่ พวกเขาจะเปิดฉากยิงใส่ผู้ประท้วง หรือทำรัฐประหารอีกครั้ง และยอมรับผลที่ตามมาได้หรือไม่

น่าเสียดายว่าสิ่งที่เกิดขึ้นในประวัติศาสตร์ไทยสมัยใหม่ทำให้เราเห็นว่ากองทัพ สถาบันกษัตริย์ และกลุ่มชนชั้นนำไม่เคยเรียนรู้จากอดีตและมักจะเลือกวิธีเอาตัวรอดในระยะสั้นเพื่อปกป้องผลประโยชน์ของตัวเองมากกว่าจะใช้วิธีการระยะยาว พวกเขาอาจจะเลือกทำอะไรโง่ๆอีกครั้งในการทำลายพรรคก้าวไกล

หากเป็นเช่นนั้น ผลที่จะตามมาคือความโกรธแค้นของประชาชนจำนวนมากและชัยชนะที่มากขึ้นของก้าวไกลในการเลือกตั้งปี 2570 วิธีที่ดีกว่าคือการปล่อยให้ก้าวไกลได้จัดตั้งรัฐบาล ด้วยความที่ สส. ของพรรคยังอายุน้อยและอ่อนประสบการณ์ เมื่อต้องเจอกับความเป็นจริงในการบริหารประเทศ พวกเขาอาจจะพ่ายแพ้ต่ออุปสรรคและสูญเสียความนิยมไปเอง การบังคับให้พวกเขาเป็นฮีโร่ผู้เสียสละเพื่อประชาธิปไตยโดยการกีดกันไม่ให้เป็นรัฐบาลรังแต่จะเป็นการเพิ่มความนิยมให้พวกเขาในอนาคต และการใช้ประเด็นเรื่องสถาบันกษัตริย์มาอ้างเพื่อขัดขวางพรรคก้าวไกลจะก่อให้เกิดการโต้กลับที่รุนแรง

“การใช้วิธีดึงสถาบันกษัตริย์เข้ามาในขั้วความขัดแย้งทางการเมืองเป็นวิธีการที่อันตราย เพราะมันจะไปกระตุ้นความต้องการของคนที่อยากให้ประเทศเป็นสาธารณรัฐและทำให้สถาบันกษัตริย์อยู่ในจุดเปราะบาง” เควิน ฮิววิสัน เขียนวิเคราะห์ในเดือนที่ผ่านมา “ในนามของการปกป้องสถาบันกษัตริย์ กลุ่มอนุรักษ์นิยมควรกระตุ้นความไม่พอใจของก้าวไกลและผู้สนับสนุนหรือไม่ การใช้กฏหมายหมิ่นพระบรมเดชานุภาพและสถาบันกษัตริย์จะทำให้สถาบันเกี่ยวข้องกับความขัดแย้งทางการเมืองโดยตรง”

เควินกล่าวต่อว่า “หากก้าวไกลถูกแย่งอำนาจ ประชาชนจะลุกฮือและตามด้วยการประท้วงแบบปี 2563 จะมีการพุ่งเป้าไปที่สัญลักษณ์ของสถาบันกษัตริย์ ความต้องการปฏิรูปสถาบันจะเพิ่มมากขึ้น อาจเกิดการเรียกร้องให้เปลี่ยนแปลงประเทศไปในแนวสาธารณรัฐซึ่งจะเป็นการท้าทายแกนความเชื่อแบบอนุรักษ์นิยม นอกจากนั้นเราต้องไม่ลืมว่ากองทัพอาจจะเข้ามาแทรกแซง การที่วชิราลงกรณ์สามารถควบคุมกองทัพในกรุงเทพฯได้ จะส่งผลให้การทำรัฐประหารจะถูกมองว่ามีกลุ่มชนชั้นนำหนุนหลังและจะถูกโต้กลับอย่างรุนแรง สิ่งนี้จะเพิ่มความเสียหายให้แก่ตัวสถาบันเอง”

ในด้านของเพื่อไทยที่หากจะตั้งรัฐบาลโดยไม่มีก้าวไกล เพื่อไทยจะเจอกับปัญหาหนักเช่นกัน การร่วมมือกับประวิตรและประชาธิปัตย์แม้จะเป็นผลดีต่อการกลับบ้านของทักษิณโดยไม่ต้องได้รับโทษ แต่จะนำพาหายนะมาสู่เพื่อไทย ผู้สนับสนุนเพื่อไทยจะไม่พอใจเพราะพรรคอ้างว่าสนับสนุนประชาธิปไตยตลอดมา หากพรรคเลือกจะอยู่ข้างผู้นำคณะรัฐประหารที่เคยปล้นอำนาจตัวเองในปี 2557 และเลือกประชาธิปัตย์ที่อยู่เบื้องหลังการสังหารหมู่ประชาชนเสื้อแดงในปี 2552 และ 2553 ภาพลักษณ์ของเพื่อไทยจะย่อยยับไม่มีชิ้นดีและจะถูกลงโทษให้แพ้การเลือกตั้งอย่างยับเยินกว่าเดิมในการเลือกตั้งครั้งหน้า

ดูเหมือนว่าจะมีความไม่ลงรอยกันภายในครอบครัวชินวัตรเอง แพทองธาร ลูกสาวของทักษิณวัย 36 ซึ่งถูกวางตัวให้เป็นผู้นำพรรคในอนาคต ประกาศชัดเจนหลายครั้งว่าพรรคจะรักษาสัญญาที่ให้ไว้กับก้าวไกล เธอเข้าใจสถานการณ์ของพรรคมากกว่าทักษิณว่าจะเกิดความเสียหายเพียงใดหากไม่รับฟังคนรุ่นใหม่

ตามที่เคน แมทธิส โลหเตปานนท์ เขียนไว้ในบทวิเคราะห์ของ Thai Enquirer ในเดือนที่ผ่านมาว่า “เป็นเรื่องที่เข้าใจได้หากพรรคที่ชนะการเลือกตั้งอันดับสองจะขึ้นมาจัดตั้งรัฐบาลหากพรรคอันดับหนึ่งไม่สามารถทำได้ อย่างไรก็ตาม ภาพลักษณ์ของพรรคจะเสียหายอย่างมากเนื่องจากได้ประกาศตลอดมาว่าจะไม่ตั้งรัฐบาลแข่งกับก้าวไกล ผู้นำเพื่อไทยที่ยังทำใจไม่ได้ที่พรรคไม่ชนะแบบแลนด์สไลด์รู้ดีว่าการตั้งรัฐบาลโดยผลักให้ก้าวไกลไปเป็นฝ่ายค้านจะทำให้เพื่อไทยสูญเสียคะแนนนิยมมากขึ้น และจะทำให้ก้าวไกลได้ สส. มากขึ้นในการเลือกตั้งครั้งหน้า”

แต่หาก สว. และ ส.ส. จากภูมิใจไทยและประชาธิปัตย์ไม่โหวตให้พิธา และทำให้พิธามีเสียงไม่ถึง 376 เสียง สมการทางการเมืองอาจเปลี่ยนแปลง เคนตั้งข้อสังเกตว่า “หนทางยังอีกยาวไกล อย่างไรก็ตาม คนอาจเปลี่ยนความคิดเมื่อสถานการณ์เปลี่ยน การตั้งรัฐบาลของเพื่อไทยจะถูกมองว่าเป็นการแข่งขันกับก้าวไกลหรือไม่ หากสถานการณ์ของก้าวไกลถึงทางตัน”

การเลือกตั้งครั้งนี้เป็นเสมือนการทำประชาพิจารณ์เรื่องอำนาจของกองทัพและสถาบันกษัตริย์ ประชาชนจำนวน 2 ใน 3 แสดงให้เห็นผ่านการเลือกก้าวไกลและเพื่อไทยแล้วว่าพวกเขาต้องการประชาธิปไตยและไม่ต้องการอำนาจกองทัพ จำนวนของคนกลุ่มนี้จะเพิ่มขึ้น ประเทศไทยกำลังจะเปลี่ยนแปลง อำนาจของกองทัพและสถาบันกษัตริย์จะลดลง ลักษณะของประชากรเป็นตัวแปรสำคัญของความเปลี่ยนแปลงนี้ ผู้สูงอายุที่เป็นรอยัลลิสต์กำลังทยอยเสียชีวิต ในขณะที่คนรุ่นใหม่ที่มีสิทธิ์เลือกตั้งมีจำนวนเพิ่มมากขึ้น หากพวกไดโนเสาร์ยังโง่และเลือกขัดขวางพิธาและก้าวไกล พวกเขาจะปลุกความโกรธแค้นของคนไทยและเร่งให้ตัวเองไปสู่จุดจบเร็วยิ่งขึ้น

“กลุ่มชนชั้นนำไทยควรพยายามเจรจาต่อรองในขณะที่ยังทำได้” ฐิตินันท์เสนอไว้ในบทความของ Nikkei Asia

"ไม่ว่าจะเกิดอะไรขึ้นกับตำแหน่งนายกรัฐมนตรีของพิธาและพรรคก้าวไกล ประเทศไทยจะไม่เหมือนเดิมอีกต่อไป ระบบการเมืองที่เกิดขึ้นตั้งแต่ครึ่งหลังของศตวรรษที่ 20 จะถูกตรวจสอบและกดดันให้เกิดการปฏิรูปเปลี่ยนแปลง สิ่งที่จะเกิดขึ้นตามมาคือการเจรจาต่อรองและการหาข้อสรุปร่วมกัน เพื่อให้กองทัพ สถาบันกษัตริย์ และสถาบันอำนาจอื่นๆได้ต่อรองอำนาจที่ไม่ใช่การรวบอภิสิทธิ์ทุกอย่างเอาไว้ทั้งหมดฝ่ายเดียว แต่ต้องกระจายอำนาจให้ประชาชนมากขึ้น”

เขาเพิ่มเติมว่า “สังคมได้ส่งสัญญาณอย่างชัดเจนแล้ว หากกลุ่มอำนาจเก่ายังดื้อดึงจะเล่นเกมแบบเดิมอย่างในอดีต พวกเขาจะสูญเสียทุกอย่างให้พลังการเปลี่ยนแปลงจากรอบด้าน และการเมืองแบบแบ่งขั้วแบ่งข้างจะตามหลอกหลอนพวกเขาต่อไปอีกนาน”

สิ่งหนึ่งที่แน่นอนคือ ไม่ว่าใครจะเป็นนายกรัฐมนตรี ไม่ช้าก็เร็ว ไดโนเสาร์จะสูญพันธุ์อย่างแน่นอน

“I am Pita Limjaroenrat, the next prime minister of Thailand,” declared the 42-year-old leader of the progressive Move Forward party in a speech to cheering supporters after winning a stunning victory in the May 14 general election. “The people of Thailand have already spoken their wish, and I am ready to be the prime minister for all of you whether you agree with me or you disagree with me.”

Move Forward shocked the Thai establishment with its unexpected victory, winning 14.4 million party list votes, representing 38 percent of the electorate. The party performed remarkably well in Bangkok, winning 32 of the capital’s 33 constituencies. Overall they won 151 seats. The result was all the more remarkable because unlike all other major parties, Move Forward did not engage in vote buying and bribery, and did not rely on patronage networks to win support.

In second place was Pheu Thai, which had been widely expected to win a landslide but ended up being eclipsed by Move Forward. Pheu Thai got 29 percent of party list votes cast, and fared well in constituency elections, giving it 141 seats.

Move Forward and Pheu Thai both campaigned on a platform of decisively ending the influence of the “uncles” who seized power in a coup in 2014 — Prayut Chan-ocha and Prawit Wongsuwan. Their combined party list vote share of 67 percent shows that an overwhelming majority of Thais — two thirds — have rejected the ruinous rule of the dinosaurs and want real democracy.

But as Thitinan Pongsudhirak, professor of international relations at Chulalongkorn University wrote in an article for Nikkei Asia: “The new dawn that Thai voters endorsed last month is being vehemently resisted by an entrenched old political order.”

He added: “Powerful saboteurs are at work to stymie Move Forward's comprehensive agenda to start unwinding Thailand's monarchy-centered sociopolitical hierarchy and move toward greater egalitarianism and reform of traditional power centers to unleash competitive economic forces and talents that have been held back for so long. The military and monarchy are now at the front and center of where debate and action will take place.”

Unfortunately, the dinosaurs remain unwilling to face reality. They will not give up without a fight.

Read more

The statement was actually quite honest compared to most royal health announcements over the past couple of centuries, and seems to be designed to prepare Thais for the news that she is dead.

It confirmed that she has never regained consciousness since her health emergency and also indirectly confirmed once again that she is being kept artificially alive by medical devices.

As I have been reporting since December 14, the day Bajrakitiyabha died according to any sensible definition of what it means to die, she is brain dead but her body is being kept alive by an ECMO machine, which is used to treat people with profound heart and lung failure, by circulating and oxygenating blood outside the body.

You can see the latest statement here:

Although the statement confirms what I have been reporting for weeks — she has never regained consciousness and is being kept alive by machines — there is still some untrue information.

Strangely it claims that her health emergency was caused by acute heart arrhythmia due to inflammation after a mycoplasma infection.

In fact, as I reported last month, from information from excellent royal and medical sources, the princess suffered a brain aneurysm causing a massive subarachnoid haemorrhage.

What this means is that a narrowed or weakened artery in Ong Bha's brain had caused a balloon of blood to accumulate at the weak point in the artery. This had probably been going on for several years but because it didn't cause any apparent symptoms nobody would have known about it. Meanwhile the balloon was silently but relentlessly growing and sooner or later it was bound to burst.

The princess unknowingly had a ticking time bomb in her brain, and on December 14 it exploded. Her skull was flooded with blood, which in turn caused cardiac and respiratory arrest.

I don’t know why the latest statement is still saying the problem is an issue with her heart, but I assume it’s because the first palace health bulletin, on December 15, said Bajrakitiyabha had collapsed because of a heart problem and the Thai palace refuses to ever admit it was wrong about anything, so they have to maintain the fiction that it was a heart condition that caused this tragedy.

But this is not true. It was a brain aneurysm and she will never wake up. She is brain dead.

Here is the December 15 bulletin from the palace, which the regime will be desperate to avoid contradicting, even though it is not correct:

So don’t believe the palace, they always just lie, over and over again. The truth is that Bajrakitiyabha had a brain aneurysm and will never get better.

But the regime is desperate to cover this up, for the moment. The Ministry of Digital Economy and Society has even threatened to prosecute people for computer crimes just for sharing the truth.

There is a huge royalist propaganda campaign under way to get people to pray for her recovery, which will never happen. Soldiers and civil servants are being ordered to hold ceremonies to exhort help from the heavens, and people are being told to temporarily ordain as monks to save the princess.

Even though palace health bulletins are never honest, they usually have some clues we can decode. They always try to claim that the condition of whatever royal has had a health issue is getting better. They have not even tried to do that with Princess Bajrakitiyabha. The bulletins are just preparing Thais for the news that she is dead.

Meanwhile, there were strange scenes at the massive Blackpink concert in Bangkok last night, with the king’s older sister Ubolratana ostentatiously partying while her niece is brain dead in hospital.

This evening, the palace held a ceremony for the 36th birthday of Princess Sirivannavari, half-sister of Bajrakitiyabha and tried to pretend everything was fine.

This whole story is just really sad, and as I have said before, I never had any animosity against the princess. I’m not writing about this to mock the royal family, nobody should celebrate the death of Bajrakitiyabha, but Thai people deserve to know the truth and it’s my job as a journalist to report what has happened.

For Secret Siam subscribers, here’s some more analysis of why you can never believe any health bulletin from the palace.

Read more

Bajrakitiyabha’s personal nurse, who accompanies her wherever she goes, was unable to revive her. A soldier performed CPR on her for more than an hour as she was rushed to Pak Chong Nana Hospital.

By the time she arrived at the hospital, her situation was already hopeless, despite the heroic efforts to keep her alive with CPR. When the brain is deprived of oxygen, permanent damage begins within five minutes, and brain death usually occurs within 10. Bajrakitiyabha had been starved of oxygen for far longer than this.

Nevertheless, doctors made frantic efforts to try to save her. The princess was connected to an ECMO machine, which is used to treat people with profound heart and lung failure, by circulating and oxygenating blood outside the body.

When he was informed of the seriousness of the situation, King Vajiralongkorn raced to Pak Chong in a military helicopter, arriving towards midnight. Meanwhile the best intensive care medical helicopter in Thailand, registration HS-BHQ, was sent to Pak Chong too.

I first heard about what was happening from palace sources as the helicopters were heading towards the hospital, and after I verified the information I broke the news on Facebook and Twitter, and have been publishing regular updates ever since.

When he arrived at the hospital, Vajiralongkorn was distraught when he realised how bad things were. He told doctors to continue to do whatever they could, even though it was clear his daughter was already beyond help. Eventually, with no improvement in her condition, a decision was made to bring Bajrakitiyabha back to Bangkok.

In the early hours of Thursday, December 15, medical helicopter HS-BHQ left Pak Chong with Bajrakitiyabha aboard. For the flight back to Bangkok it was flanked by two military helicopters, one of which was carrying Vajiralongkorn. To try to maintain secrecy, HS-BHQ did not file details of its departure and arrival locations, but its journey could still be monitored on flight tracking apps.

The helicopter landed at Bangkok Hospital around 2:15 am, and then Bajrakitiyabha was transferred to Chulalongkorn Hospital by road. The reason for the decision not to fly directly to Chulalongkorn is unknown. It may have been that they were trying to preserve secrecy, not yet knowing the story had already been reported and we were tracking the helicopter in real time.

By the time Bajrakitiyabha arrived at Chulalongkorn Hospital she’d had no brain function for at least nine hours. Her heart and lungs were still not working. Desperate intensive treatment continued but she was clearly beyond saving.

After her collapse at the dog training event, it had been assumed that she’d had a heart attack, because her heart had indeed stopped beating. But doctors at Chulalongkorn Hospital realised that in fact the princess had suffered a brain aneurysm causing a massive subarachnoid haemorrhage.

What this means is that a narrowed or weakened artery in Ong Bha's brain had caused a balloon of blood to accumulate at the weak point in the artery. This had probably been going on for several years but because it didn't cause any apparent symptoms nobody would have known about it. Meanwhile the balloon was silently but relentlessly growing and sooner or later it was bound to burst.

The princess unknowingly had a ticking time bomb in her brain, and on December 14 it exploded. Her skull was flooded with blood, which in turn caused cardiac and respiratory arrest.

Once this had happened, in provincial Thailand miles from a hospital, not even the best neurosurgeon in the world could have saved her

It was not until around midday on Thursday that doctors at Chulalongkorn dared to formally pronounce Ong Bha brain dead, but this fact has remained secret. On the orders of the king, Bajrakitiyabha continues to be kept technically alive by the ECMO machine. But she will never ever wake up.

As an ICU and trauma specialist consultant explained to me:

The ECMO basically makes the blood circulate in the body, the blood is oxygenated outside in a machine. The blood pressure from the ECMO can indeed maintain the body cells alive. But the brain does not come back from this damage, both from the subarachnoid haemorrhage and also from the lack of proper oxygenation to the brain for hours.

On Thursday afternoon, the palace finally issued a statement on the health of the princess. As usual with royal health bulletins, it was mostly fiction. It said that she had lost consciousness as a result of a heart condition, but that her condition had stabilised in hospital at Pak Chong and she’d subsequently been transferred by helicopter to Chulalongkorn Hospital where she was undergoing checks. It failed to mention that there was no hope of recovery.

Vajiralongkorn visited his daughter in hospital four times on Thursday, and again on Friday accompanied by Queen Suthida. Both were visibly exhausted and devastated as they left.

Vajiralongkorn and his daughter had huge affection for each other, and Bajrakitiyabha was also close to Suthida and probably her biggest ally and defender in the palace.

Later that day, the palace announced that the king and queen had caught the coronavirus and would suspend royal duties for the moment.

Meanwhile, Thais across the country have been urged to pray for Bajrakitiyabha’s recovery. Prime minister Prayut Chan-ocha and other senior ministers have visited Chulalongkorn Hospital to prostrate and present offerings at a large portrait of the princess. Military units have held mass ceremonies on their knees, exhorting help from the heavens. Civil servants and local administrations in all provinces have been ordered to organise religious ceremonies for the princess, as well as other initiatives such as donating alms to monks and releasing fish and animals that were due to be butchered. The supreme patriarch has told every temple in the kingdom to hold an extra ceremony each day. Christian and Muslim leaders have also mobilised their communities to offer prayers.

But this is all just a charade, because as the palace and regime are well aware, Bajrakitiyabha has been dead since December 14 according to any sensible definition of what it means to die.

A second palace health bulletin on December 19 indirectly acknowledged the princess’s condition. It said she had not regained consciousness and “medicine and equipment” were being used to support her heart, lungs and kidneys. This was an oblique way of saying that she is being kept alive by an ECMO machine.

It’s not clear how long this will continue. Several royal sources say the princess may be kept artificially alive for at least a couple of weeks until early January. The palace is worried that disruption to the New Year celebrations, after two years of economic agony because of the pandemic, would drag the popularity of the monarchy even lower. Delaying the announcement also allows them to exploit the plight of the princess to stir up royalist fervour across the country.

The news that the king and queen have covid — whether true or invented — also means announcement of Bajrakitiyabha’s death is likely to be days or weeks away.

Once her death is officially announced, the period of strict mourning is likely to be relatively brief, probably no longer than two weeks. Even during this period shops and restaurants will remain open but some entertainment venues will close, or at least operate more discreetly.

There will be further mourning for months afterwards but this will mainly just require officials to wear black clothing or armbands, plus plenty of additional royalist propaganda being pumped out. It won’t really affect the everyday lives of most Thais or tourists at all.

When King Bhumibol died in October 2016, there was a month of strict mourning in which Thais were told to avoid taking part in so-called joyful activities, and the full mourning period lasted a year. Mourning for Bajrakitiyabha will be significantly less stringently enforced, and the economic damage to the crucial tourism and hospitality industries will be relatively limited, although if New Year celebrations are cancelled it would be a significant blow to many businesses. The regime will be keen to limit the economic fallout — it’s simply not sustainable after the damage already wrought by covid-19.

As everybody knows I am opposed to the monarchy’s role in undermining democracy in Thailand, and I am no fan of Vajiralongkorn, but the death of Bajrakitiyabha is a personal tragedy for all of the royals and they deserve compassion and space to grieve. Nobody should celebrate her death.

But the people of Thailand also deserve to be told the truth, instead of being dragged into days or weeks of royalist theatrics to pray for the impossible resurrection of a woman who has already been brain dead for days and who has no chance of recovery.

So I am not writing about Bajrakitiyabha’s death to mock or taunt the royal family. I’m just doing my job as a journalist to try to provide reliable information to Thais because they can't get this from other sources, least of all the palace or the regime.

It’s also important to analyse what the death of the princess means for Thai royal succession and the future of the dynasty. It had been widely assumed that Bajrakitiyabha would be the next monarch after the death of Vajiralongkorn, or at the very least would act as regent on behalf of her younger half-brother Dipangkorn, whose severe autism means he can never really reign alone.

To help navigate the complex issue of royal succession, a friend has produced a superb chart showing the relevant dynastic history that brought us to this point, and our best guess of the likely line of succession. It’s so big and detailed that I can’t post it as an image, but it is an invaluable guide to the future of the monarchy, and you can download it as a PDF here:

THAI ROYAL LINE OF SUCCESSION

The rest of this post, for Secret Siam subscribers, will discuss the implications of Bajrakitiyabha’s death for Thai politics, the game of thrones in the palace, and the future of the Chakri dynasty.

If you would like to support my journalism you can subscribe here:

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1. Royal blood

The reason there is so much uncertainty over who will succeed Vajiralongkorn is that he’s had such a tumultuous private life that there are several possible candidates. To analyse Thai royal succession dynamics, we have to start with a history of the king’s marriages. The role of Bajrakitiyabha in the shifting royal succession dynamics over the decades is also crucial.

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This week’s newsletter focuses on recent developments surrounding the future of Prayut Chan-ocha and the rules for the upcoming elections next year…

Time bomb

The clock is ticking for Prayut Chan-ocha.

Opposition parties are petitioning the Constitutional Court to make a formal ruling on whether the prime minister’s term in office should end later this month on August 24. The tiny Thai Civilized microparty lodged its petition yesterday, and all the main opposition parties are expected to follow suit tomorrow, August 17. Although it is notoriously glacial in making decisions even by the sluggish standards of the Thai judiciary, in theory if the court accepts the petition it has a duty to issue an injunction suspending Prayut from office right away for as long as it takes for a formal decision to be made.

There are two key articles in the 2017 constitution that are at the heart of the dispute.

The first is Article 158. It includes this provision (the English wording is taken from an excellent translation provided by Constitute):

The Prime Minister shall not hold office for more than eight years in total, whether or not holding consecutive term. However, it shall not include the period during which the Prime Minister carries out duties after vacating office.

Prayut officially became prime minister on August 24, 2014, three months after he seized power in a coup. So this means his time should be up later this month.

As the leader of Pheu Thai, Cholnan Srikaew, said earlier this week:

According to the charter, a prime minister cannot stay in power for more than 8 years, no matter if the terms were consecutive or nonconsecutive. The issue that the term limit can be nonconsecutive was important because it meant that the term can be counted backward and there was no written exception to this rule.

According to Move Forward Party deputy leader Natthawut Buaprathum:

A time bomb may explode if general Prayut refuses to step down in a timely manner.

Prayut’s supporters are trying to argue that his eight years as prime minister officially began in April 2017, when the latest constitution was promulgated, or even in June 2019, when he was sworn in as premier following the elections earlier that year.

However, these arguments are undermined by Article 264, which basically says that ministers who were appointed under previous constitutions since 2014 were eligible to remain in these positions under the new constitution. Essentially, Article 264 was intended to codify continuity between the pre- and-post 2017 administrations, which is exactly what Prayut’s supporters are now trying to deny. They are trying to say he wasn’t officially prime minister before 2017 under the latest constitution, even though the constitution explicitly states that he was.

Moreover, documents shared on social media by Kanchanee Walayasevi, leader of the Peace-Loving Thais group, show that the Constitution Drafting Committee discussed this specific issue on September 7, 2018, and concluded that “even though the premiership started before the charter came into effect, the period should be counted as a premiership term”.

It’s particularly ironic because the eight-year limit for the prime minister was added to the constitution by the royalist and military elite to prevent another populist premier like Thaksin Shinawatra gaining political dominance via repeated elected victories, but now it has backfired to put Prayut’s future in doubt.

As usual in Thailand, however, whatever the Constitutional Court decides won’t be based on any sensible consideration of what the law actually says. The judges of the court have a long and dishonourable record of doing whatever whatever the palace and ruling elite tell them to do, and then coming up with various excuses to justify their decisions, however ridiculous and implausible.

The lack of basic principles of fairness and impartiality in the decisions of the Thai judiciary is so obvious by now that it doesn’t really require elaborating, but another recent development just demonstrated it once again. Earlier this month, Supreme Court judge Wichit Leethamchayo was denied an extension of his tenure because he allegedly mingled with and chatted to pro-democracy protesters a couple of times last year. This supposedly demonstrated unacceptable political bias, but Methinee Chalothorn, who was appointed head of the Supreme Court a couple of years ago and retired last year, had openly supported the ultraroyalist street protests trying to bring down the elected government of Yingluck Shinawatra but never faced any sanction.

So we know the Constitutional Court is not impartial and the judges will do what they are told. The question is whether King Vajiralongkorn and his allies still support Prayut and want to keep him in place at least until the next general elections in 2023.

This is where it gets interesting, because it has become clear even to many of the biggest fans of the irascible premier that he has become an electoral liability and that Pheu Thai and other opposition parties are heading for a landslide victory unless the regime can find a prime ministerial candidate who can mobilise much more support.

Moreover, Prayut has never been particularly close to Vajiralongkorn, unlike another former army commander-in-chief, Apirat Kongsompong, a firm ally of the king, who is widely regarded as a palace favourite for the role of prime minister in the future.

Under the constitution, Apirat becomes eligible for political office from October this year, two years after his official retirement from the military.

Prayut’s two sidekicks in the ruling triumvirate nicknamed the “three Ps” — Prawit “Pom” Wongsuwan and Anupong “Poh” Paochinda — have insisted the prime minister retains their full support. At Prawit’s 77th birthday party last week at the headquarters of the Five Provinces Bordering Forest Preservation Foundation, which is the engine of the elderly former general’s sprawling patronage and influence network, based inside the 1st Infantry Regiment compound on Vibhavadi Rangsit Road, the three old comrades put on an ostentatious performance of solidarity.

Anupong insisted that if Prayut leaves politics, the two other Ps will leave too. Prayut gave Prawit a framed picture of a cockeral as a gift, allegedly a reference to his old buddy’s Chinese zodiac sign. Prawit put his arm around Anupong’s waist as they had their photographs taken, declaring: “See, no fights among us.”

Of course this was all just posturing. Prawit’s has been increasingly in conflict with his two former subordinates in the 21st Infantry Regiment for several years. He is a brilliant networker and political pragmatist who wants to ensure his continued influence behind the scenes through his foundation. Obviously he has zero genuine interest in preserving any forests but he is determined to remain a key player in the elite, and the money funnelled through his foundation is essential for him to do that. Maintaining his network also requires him to do his best to help the Palang Pracharat Party, which he leads, get as good a result as possible at the next election.

Prawit’s rift with Prayut and Anupong exploded into the open last August and September when he gave tacit approval for his former henchman Thamanat Prompow, a convicted drug smuggler and serial liar, to launch a plot to topple his former comrades. Even after the conspiracy collapsed he continued to support Thamanat until his erstwhile political fixer’s behaviour became too mercurial and provocative ahead of the most recent no-confidence debate in parliament last month.

Prawit is increasingly geriatric and even he himself probably doesn’t believe that he is a credible prime ministerial candidate for the next election, but he has pointedly refused to rule it out, and if he could become the stand-in premier in the meantime if Prayut is suspended, it would give him immense leverage to boost his influence and network even further.

Another supposed ally of Prayut also seeking to benefit from the latest shenanigans is Bhumjai Thai leader Anutin Charnvirakul, who has long held aspirations to be prime minister, and is waiting to pounce. He says he will wait for the Constitutional Court decision, adding unconvincingly: “We will just follow the rules of the game.”

Prayut has no real influence over the military any more, since Vajiralongkorn became king and Apirat became the main palace protégé. His electoral appeal is imploding. He doesn't even have a major political party that unequivocally backs him, because most Palang Pracharat MPs think he is a liability and want him gone, so he’s having to scheme to create backup parties, which I’ll discuss later in this newsletter. The extraordinary popularity of Bangkok governor Chadchart Sittipunt starkly contrasts with the widespread national exasperation with Prayut. Even the ultraroyalists think he should be kicked out. He is a dinosaur facing extinction.

Former ambassador Pithaya Pookaman provided a useful analysis at Asia Sentinel:

Any prime minister, be he military or civilian, can be toppled if not on the same page with the palace… Prayut has served the palace well by providing lavish funds and amenities for the king and members of the royal family while safeguarding the monarchy by ruthless application of the country’s anti lèse majesté law, considered the world’s most severe. But Prayut’s eight years as head of government may be viewed by the palace as too long. Notwithstanding the favors he has showered on the king, his statecraft and performance have been an utter failure. Members of his family and his cronies have enriched themselves and occupied important positions in the country.

But the question for Vajiralongkorn and his allies in the palace, and the ascendant King’s Guard 904 faction of the military that has eclipsed Prayut’s clique, is when to pull the trigger.

Thai GDP seems to be on an upward trajectory as tourism recovers following the easing of more than two years of painful coronavirus travel restrictions, but other huge problems are looming as the impact of the Russian invasion of Ukraine sends fuel prices and the cost of living sharply higher, and the rebound in economic growth was lower than expected.

So should the palace jettison Prayut now, hope to ride an economic upswing to secure an unexpected election victory for pro-regime parties next year, and try to instal Apirat as prime minister? Or allow Prayut to waddle onwards as a lame duck premier until the polls, wait in the wings for a while in the hope that Pheu Thai support evaporates amid continued hardship, and stage another intervention to bring down yet another elected government in a couple of years and instal their candidate then?

These are the calculations being considered by royal advisors right now. One thing we know for sure is that whatever the Constitutional Court decides will have nothing to do with a fair interpretation of the charter. It will be determined by a signal from the palace based on the monarchy’s strategic calculation on how best to ensure that the regime wins in the end.

Party time

With a general election due in the first half of next year, all kinds of political shenanigans are already in full swing to bend the rules as much as possible.

One of the main issues preoccupying Thai politicians over recent months — when their time might have been better spent considering the worsening cost of living crisis, rising geopolitical tensions, and of course the unprecedentedly widespread demands for reform of the monarchy and achieving real democracy — is the method for calculating the distribution of party list MPs.

This is quite an esoteric subject but for those who have not been following it closely, here is my best attempt to explain it.

Party list MPs were first introduced in Thailand in the constitution of 1997, which was probably the most democratic charter the kingdom has ever had, even though it was still far from being fully democratic by any normal international standards. It was mainly created by two “royal liberals” who were close to King Bhumibol — Anand Panyarachun and Prawase Wasi. Their main motivation was to try to usher in a political system that would withstand the accession of Vajiralongkorn and replace the “network monarchy” of the latter decades of the Bhumibol era with a more formal rule-based order that could cope with the mercurial whims of Rama X.

The 1997 constitution was torn up after the military coup of 2006. Anand, who had been the main architect of the charter, was among those most responsible for wrecking it, as the royal liberals, like most of the monarchist elite, became obsessed with the threat they believed Thaksin Shinawatra posed to the traditional hierarchy. The rise and fall of the 1997 charter is a really interesting story which I will tell in full in a future newsletter, but right now I will just focus on one issue — party list MPs.

Patrician royalists and technocrats had long fretted that one of the issues blighting Thai politics was that that winning a seat in parliament usually required having an extensive vote-buying, patronage and intimidation network, so the system tended to favour local criminals, gangsters and so-called godfathers. The elite blamed ordinary Thais for this, for being too uneducated to vote for “good people”, even though there is extensive evidence that over recent decades Thais even in the least developed provinces increasingly vote for the party that they think will provide the best policies to improve their lives. But it remains true that even today, corrupt wealthy godfathers still dominate elections at the constituency level, and local politics is a brutal game that the self-proclaimed “good people” are unequipped to play.

Instead of really trying to reform the system, the elite continue to blame Thais for being too poorly educated to vote for the right people. Meanwhile they shamelessly also continued to exploit support from local politicians who bribe and fight their way into office.

The party list was created in the 1997 constitution as a way for “good people” who didn’t want to get their hands dirty in the rough-and-tumble of Thai electoral politics to still get into parliament.

The idea was simple (in theory) — around a fifth of seats in parliament (the number has changed slightly through various subsequent provisional and official constitutions) would be reserved for people who didn’t want to have to get involved in scrapping for a constituency. Each party would provide a list of proposed list MPs, who would be chosen in the order of preference their party specified, depending on the national vote their party received.

It wasn’t a terrible idea, but it was spectacularly abused after the 2019 elections, in which the Election Commission, which by now had become totally coopted by the royalist elite, chose a bizarre formula for calculating the party list seats which meant that several microparties which were just corrupt clients of the elite received a foothold in parliament while the main opposition party Pheu Thai received no party list seats at all. The progressive Future Forward Party actually did much better under the crooked calculation, and the regime tried to fix that problem by getting the Constitutional Court to dissolve the party in February 2020. It turned out to be a massive miscalculation that was one of the main triggers of the historic mass pro-democracy protests that have transformed Thailand forever. You can read a full account of the extraordinary events of 2020 here.

Some elements of the ruling elite were planning to try similar chicanery in the next election. Under the latest constitution, there will be 100 party list MPs from 2023 onwards, so the obvious way to calculate party list distribution would be to divide the number of national votes for each party by 100, and award seats on that basis.

But this would mean that microparties would be mostly wiped out, which of course has infuriated them, and many members of the elite — including Prayut — are so worried about the prospect of a Pheu Thai landslide victory that they are willing to do anything to stop it, even if it means damaging the prospects of Palang Pracharat too. So a bizarre formula was proposed in which the national vote of each party would be divided by 500 — the total number of seats in parliament to allocate party list MPs. It would ensure microparties could continue to thrive while reducing the power of the biggest parties.

Prayut was willing to harm the electoral prospects of Palang Pracharat if it damaged Pheu Thai even more. But most Palang Pracharat MPs rebelled over this idea, and it caused yet another rift between Prayut and his sidekick Prawit, who is the leader of the party. So Palang Pracharat and its nemesis Pheu Thai conspired to repeatedly ensure not enough MPs turned up in parliament to create a quorum.

Earlier this week, on August 15, after yet another parliamentary debacle presided over by the hapless octogenarian speaker Chuan Leekpai, the proposal lapsed after most Palang Pracharat and Pheu Thai MPs, and many unelected senators, once again avoided showing up in parliament. Barring another twist in this saga, the big parties have won, which makes it more likely than ever that Pheu Thai will be by far the biggest party in the next parliament and might even secure an absolute majority (although that doesn’t take into account the 250 elected senators who have a vote on the next prime minister too, another issue I’ll analyse soon).

As Thai PBS observed:

Political analysists see the killing of the bill as another political game that serves no public interest. Palang Pracharath, the core ruling coalition party, had earlier supported the bill with the hope that it would need support from small parties in the next general elections. Votes from the small parties were crucial in helping Prime Minister Prayut Chan-ocha and members of the Cabinet survive the recent no-confidence vote.

The whole saga has shown yet again that despite their claims of unity, divisions are growing between Prayut and Prawit.

Meanwhile, pointless political parties have been springing up like mushrooms, although many of them were created to take advantage of the 500-based party list formula and will wither unless the reversion to the 100-based calculation is challenged.

Probably the most ludicrous of all the new parties is Thoet Thai, a political vehicle for the disgraced Seksakol Atthawong, aka Rambo Isaan, a former Red Shirt and chronic political turncoat who switched sides to support the junta after the 2014 coup, and was even given a job as deputy minister in the prime minister’s office. He had to resign in April after a leaked audio recording showed he had accepted bribes from people involved in corruption in the national lottery. Rambo’s excuse that he had just been joking on the phone call was so pathetic that it stretched the bounds of credulity even beyond the breaking point of the current administration, so he was pushed out of the government. This new party is intended to somehow rehabilitate him.

Another cartoonishly corrupt figure — Thamanat Prompow, who was previously deputy agriculture minister, Palang Pracharat secretary general, and Prawit’s political fixer — took over the Setthakij Thai aka Thai Economic party in January after his antics seeking to undermine Prayut became so provocative that Prawit could no longer publicly be associated with him. To try to control his increasingly deranged former henchman, Prawit installed another ally, the sinister retired general Vit Thephasdin Na Ayutthaya, as head of Setthakij Thai, while Thamanat took the post of secretary general. But on May 24, Thamanat staged a coup in the party, resigning along with 14 others from the 22-member executive board to trigger the replacement of Vit as leader. Thamanat duly became leader, staged another botched plot to topple Prayut at the no-confidence debate last month, and then completely burned his bridges with Prawit by leaking documents showing illegal payments to microparties.

It’s not clear what Thamanat now hopes to achieve with his Thai Economic party, which has nobody who possesses any economic expertise, no coherent economic policies at all, and indeed no credible policy platform whatsoever.

After being ousted from Thamanat’s doomed political vehicle, general Vit jumped ship to another microparty with no policies, the Palang Chart Thai Party, now renamed Ruam Phaen Din, or Thailand Together.

It’s obvious to everybody that the sole purpose of this party is to assist Palang Pracharat in promoting the political interests of Prawit, especially if his rift with Prayut widens. But Vit has been unconvincingly trying to deny this, claiming he “has nothing to do with the PPRP” even though he was its strategy chief until January.

Perhaps the most interesting of the latest batch of new political parties is Ruam Thai Sarng Chart, which was initially founded by Rambo Isan before the lottery scandal forced him to resign, and has now been taken over by a group of ultraroyalist politicians who defected from the ossifying Democrats.

The party leader is Pirapan Salirathavibhaga, a former senior Democrat politician who broke away in 2019 to become an advisor to Prayut, and the secretary general is Akanat Promphan, stepson of the notorious Suthep Thaugsuban. Suthep was secretary general of the Democrat Party before resigning in 2013 to create the People's Committee for Absolute Democracy with the King as Head of State, the far-right royalist movement that sought to bring down Yingluck Shinawatra. Akanat, who famously (and untruthfully) claimed to have six degrees from Oxford University, was another key figure in that movement. Also joining the party is Witthaya Kaewparadai, who resigned as a deputy leader of the Democrats in April.

This party poses a real threat to the Democrats, who have always drawn their votes from two main areas — Bangkok, especially middle and upper-class voters, and southern Thailand where local godfathers affiliated to the party dominated elections.

The landslide victory of Chadchart in the Bangkok gubernatorial election, showed that the appeal of the Democrat brand has collapsed in the capital, and now Ruam Thai Sarng Chart says it will contest all southern seats in the next election which could do severe damage to Democrat prospects there. The Democrats are nicknamed “the cockroach party” because of their remarkable political resilience despite never coming close to winning general elections, but their prospects are looking increasingly bleak as their relevance evaporates.

Ruam Thai Sarng Chart is staunchly pro-Prayut and will back him as its prime ministerial candidate, although of course he denies it is his backup party if Prawit and Palang Pracharat stab him in the back.

All these machinations about the 500 calculation versus the 100 formula for picking the party list, and the proliferation of new parties with no ideology or policies, are almost comical, but also deeply depressing. It all shows how little Thai politics has evolved over multiple decades. It’s still just a game played by the elite “good people” and their criminal godfather allies to screw ordinary people.

More lèse majesté

The latest victim of the awful and archaic lèse majesté law is the dissident musician Parinya “Port” Cheewinkulpathom, who has been sentenced to nine years in jail, reduced to six because he cooperated with police, after being found guilty of three counts of violating Article 112. The charges relate to three Facebook posts he wrote in 2016, none of which made any mention of Bhumibol or Vajiralongkorn or any member of the royal family.

One post simply said that a monarchy that relies on using lèse majesté laws to protect itself is ignorant. The second, commenting on the abortive coup in Turkey in 2016, said it had failed because there was no king to endorse it. The third included profane lyrics for a song he was working on. None of the comments would be considered criminal in any country where democracy and freedom of speech are valued.

Port was one of the members of the brilliant political band Faiyen, whose members fled to Laos after the 2014 coup and then found themselves trapped and facing worsening danger as Thai refugees around Southeast Asia were murdered one by one by agents of the palace. In 2019, they managed to escape to asylum in France thanks to the tireless work of some Thai and foreign activists. Photographs shared on social media showed them on arrival in Paris, accompanied by Thai exiles Junya “Lek” Yimprachert and Jaran Ditapichai.

It was an extraordinary achievement to get the members of Faiyen to safety, but one element of the story was not quite true. Port was facing severe health problems and decided not to join the rest of the band in their escape. The person in the photograph holding up a sign that said “Port” was not actually him, it was just a ruse to throw the Thai authorities off his trail. While the rest of Faiyen escaped to Paris, Port went back to Thailand to be close to his family and try to fix his health issues. For a while it worked, but he was arrested last year, and now faces years in jail.

Amid the gloom, there is at least some good news — he was granted bail and his fight for freedom of speech continues.

In another piece of good news, the young activists Netiporn “Bung” Sanesangkhom and Nutthanit “Baipor” Duangmusit, who were on hunger strike for more than two months during their detention, and who I wrote about in my last news roundup, were at last given bail on August 4.

These small glimmers of hope show that the regime does not (yet) dare to launch a total crackdown on dissent, and that is a small reason to be hopeful.

That’s all for this edition, many thanks for reading and for following Secret Siam! 🙏

The thrice-divorced King Vajiralongkorn of Thailand had married his fourth wife, former Thai Airways flight attendant Suthida “Nui” Tidjai, less than three months earlier, just before his official coronation, and she had become the kingdom’s new queen.

But Vajiralongkorn had evidently concluded that just one official partner was simply not enough.

In an extraordinary palace ceremony on July 28, 2019, with Queen Suthida watching aghast as her husband publicly humiliated her, Vajiralongkorn anointed Sineenat “Koi” Wongvajirabhakdi as his “royal noble consort”, pouring lustral water from a conch shell onto her head as she prostrated on the floor at his feet in a posture that demonstrated total subservience.

Koi was just 34 years old. She had risen from humble beginnings in northern Thailand to become a qualified pilot, a major general in the military allegedly trained in jungle warfare and parachuting, and now the consort of the king. It would have been a fairytale story, if Vajiralongkorn had been a wise and kindly monarch. But he’s a violent and volatile psychopath who loves tormenting women, so the story didn’t work out as Koi had planned.

In October 2019, just a few months after becoming Vajiralongkorn’s royal noble consort, Koi was stripped of her royal titles and decorations, and her military ranks, and thrown into jail in Bangkok without any trial or even a pretence of judicial due process. She had become a participant in a different and darker kind of fairy tale — a helpless woman abused and imprisoned by a cruel and malevolent king — but unlike in archetypal fantasy stories there was no gallant hero or courageous knight coming to her rescue. She appeared doomed to a life of incarceration and despair.

Until a dramatic plot twist. The king who had abused and jailed her decided he still loved her after all. She was freed from prison and the couple reunited in Germany to live happily ever after.

The fairytale ending lasted about 15 months before everything imploded.

Koi has not been seen since December last year, and concerns are growing about her welfare. The dizzying rollercoaster ride of her position in the palace seems to be on a sharply downward trajectory once again.

This is her story.

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Niramon Ounprom was born on January 26, 1985, in a rural riverside district near the town of Nan in northern Thailand. Like most Thais she was given an affectionate nickname, which was what her family and friends called her. Koi is the Thai word for the little finger on our hands. The most accurate translation of her nickname in English is probably “Pinkie”.

Most Thais who grew up in the north during the 1980s and 1990s were not impoverished. They had enough to eat, and they didn’t have to worry about basic survival, but their options for breaking out of a parochial existence of subsistence and servitude were relatively limited. Thailand has by far the worst education system of any country in the world with comparable wealth, and young people growing up in rural areas mostly have to endure depressingly inadequate and incompetent teaching. Every year, many young people from the north and northeast move south for jobs in construction, or to find menial work in shops and hotels, or to be servants for wealthy Bangkok families, or to try to earn a living in Thailand’s vast industrialised sex industry. There is plenty of work for northerners who want to join the Bangkok underclass, but even today, it’s quite rare for somebody who grew up in rural Thailand without wealthy connections to find a way out that actually improves their lives.

But Koi was a smart and ambitious student, and she managed to do it. She joined the army, which helped fund her to train as a nurse after she finished her studies at the Wang Pha Witthayakhom school in Nan. She enrolled at the Royal Thai Army Nursing College, located at the military’s Phramongkutklao Hospital on Ratchawithi Road in Bangkok. In 2007, while still studying there, she gave a conference presentation on strategies to help soldiers quit smoking at a conference in the hospital.

Koi graduated with a bachelor’s degree in nursing in 2008 and worked for a while at Phramongkutklao Hospital before transferring to another military facility, the Ananda Mahidol Hospital in Lopburi, close to the headquarters of Thailand’s special forces, known as the Special Warfare Command, and the Khok Katiam air force base, home of the 2nd Wing Air Command.

Some time during 2011 or early 2012, Koi met Vajiralongkorn, and it changed her life forever.

During this period, Vajiralongkorn was still married to his third wife Srirasmi Suwadee, a former hostess at the all-night Thonburi Café nightclub, but he was spending most of his time living in Munich with his latest favourite mistress Suthida, who he met on a Thai Airways charity flight he was piloting from Bangkok to Chiang Mai on January 5, 2007.

Since his late teens, Vajiralongkorn has been notorious in Thailand as a serial abuser of women. He expected whatever wife he was married to at the time not only to accept his chronic philandering but also to help him recruit young women into his harem. For a few decades he preyed mainly on the attractive daughters of the Thai elite, and well-known actresses and singers, but by the 21st century this had already caused so much scandal and resentment that he began focusing mostly on commoners, in particular women working with the Royal Thai Air Force or Thai Airways.

He regularly exploited his air force connections to meet new female recruits, and if somebody caught his eye, he would arrange for them to become a lady-in-waiting at the palace, so they could join his stable of concubines.

Vajiralongkorn’s third wife Srirasmi had initially been recruited from Thonburi Café as a lady-in-waiting for his second wife, Yuvathida “Mom Benz” Polpraserth back in 1993. Vajiralongkorn banished Yuvathida and their four sons in 1996, and married Srirasmi secretly in 2001.

In 2012, Koi was transferred to the palace as a lady-in-waiting for Srirasmi, as this leaked document from August 2012 confirms.

Koi was told to report for duty wearing her army uniform and cap. Vajiralongkorn has a fetish for women in uniforms and runs his harem like a military unit, with his mistresses routinely awarded senior army ranks.

During 2012, Vajiralongkorn was still married to Srirasmi, although he hardly ever saw her because he spent most of his time with his favourite concubine Suthida at the Kempinski Hotel at Munich’s airport, which was owned by the Crown Property Bureau. He rarely returned to Thailand.

Although Koi was now officially a lady-in-waiting for Srirasmi, this was just a fiction to give her a position in the palace as a member of Vajiralongkorn’s harem, and while he was away in Germany she had little work to do, so she continued as a nurse at Ananda Mahidol Hospital for a while. She made it clear to everybody that her status had changed, wearing a badge with the image of Vajiralongkorn’s autistic son Dipangkorn that is known in Thailand to be a signifier of membership of Vajiralongkorn’s inner circle. Here’s an image from December 2012.

Koi was not content to be just another concubine, to be used and then disposed of whenever Vajiralongkorn happened to be in Thailand. She was determined to become his favourite mistress, and she was willing to do whatever it took. She made it clear to him that she would indulge all his fetishes — group sex, public nudity, BDSM games, or whatever else he wanted, and she would help him recruit more concubines and manage the royal harem.

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This week’s newsletter focuses heavily on the events surrounding last week’s no-confidence debate in parliament, plus a roundup of other news.

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Rattled regime gets another grilling — the inside story of the no-confidence debate

After four days of uncomfortable grilling by the opposition, prime minister Prayut Chan-ocha and his 10 targeted cabinet colleagues survived a no-confidence debate as expected, but the week’s events made it clearer than ever that the corrupt and divided ruling coalition is heading for defeat in the next national election which must be held by March next year at the latest. Prayut is becoming a lame duck premier whose allies are deserting him and whose days are numbered.

In Thailand, no-confidence debates are really just political theatre. Nobody ever expects anyone in government to lose a vote of confidence — this has never happened even once in the history of Thai parliamentary democracy. The purpose of the debate is not to actually bring down the government but to allow the opposition to ritually humiliate ministers by reciting a litany of accusations of corruption, incompetence and abuse of power, most of which are usually true. The role of the targeted ministers in the ritual is to just deny everything, however convincing the allegations against them.

The aim of the opposition is to rile their political adversaries, sow discord in the cabinet, which usually in Thailand is a ramshackle coalition of several fractious factions and parties, and undermine popular support for the government in the hope that they will suffer at the next general election.

In the latest no-confidence debate, the fourth Prayut has faced since he restored a highly skewed system of parliamentary democracy in 2019, five years after seizing power in a military coup in 2014, the real focus was on manoeuvring ahead of the next election, which must be held by March 2023.

The regime is seriously concerned that Pheu Thai will win a decisive victory next year, spooked by the stunning success of Chadchart Sittipunt in the Bangkok gubernatorial elections in May. Chadchart, who ran as an independent but was one of Pheu Thai’s three potential prime ministerial candidates at the last general election in 2019, won more than 50 percent of the vote to become Bangkok governor, the first time this has ever been achieved. Voting for the 50 members of the Bangkok Metropolitan Council followed the same trend — a remarkable shift away from the conservative pro-establishment parties who usually control the capital towards politicians perceived as progressive. Pheu Thai won 19 council seats and Move Forward got 14. The Democrats, who once dominated Bangkok, only won nine seats this time, and junta vehicle Palang Pracharat scored a desultory two.

If this trend is replicated at the next general election, it would be a disaster for Palang Pracharat and the Democrats, with Pheu Thai likely to perform extremely well and easily achieve a majority in parliament in coalition with Move Forward and some smaller opposition parties. The government is well aware of this, and panic and recriminations are reverberating through the ranks of the ruling parties. The economic climate, with Thailand yet to bounce back from the devastation wrought by the pandemic, and the cost of living rising at an unprecedented rate, will also impact support for the regime.

Their fear of losing is the reason why they made the absurd and unsupportable decision to calculate the allocation of party list MPs using a formula based on dividing votes by 500, which is the total number of members of parliament, rather than 100, which is the actual number of party list MPs. This is a similar tactic that the regime adopted after the 2019 election, and it is explicitly designed to deprive large parties like Pheu Thai of party list seats while rewarding numerous microparties which can easily be bribed. The threshold for getting a party list seat in the 500 formula is just a fifth of what it would be using 100 members for the calculation.

Even the staunchly pro-regime Bangkok Post columnist Veera Prateepchaikul says the decision is unjustifiable:

The change in the method of calculation is not just unthinkable, but also has no legal basis whatsoever. It defies common sense and is below the belt.

The most interesting element of the fiasco is that Palang Pracharat and the Democrat Party had initially supported using the 100-based calculation for the party list, because it benefits larger parties like them too. They changed their position to support the 500-based formula calculation because they are so worried about a huge Pheu Thai victory that they are willing to damage their own electoral prospects in the hope that it will damage Pheu Thai even more. Not surprisingly this has caused a rebellion among many of their own MPs, and Thai Enquirer reports that there is mounting talk of a U-turn that restores the 100 formula. The issue is likely to widen the rift between Prayut and the Palang Pracharat Party, because he supports using 500 for the formula to weaken Pheu Thai as much as possible even though it means fewer Palang Pracharat MPs will be elected.

Tensions between the prime minister and the party that propelled him to the premiership in 2019, and among the once-steadfast alliance of the so-called saam paw — the “three Ps”, Prayut, Prawit “Pom” Wonguwan, and Aunpong “Pok” Paochinda — are mounting as electoral disaster looms.

The three old comrades forged their alliance while serving in the 21st Infantry Regiment, became the leaders of the dominant faction in the army, and were the core of the junta that seized power in 2014. Prayut became prime minister but the “big brother” in the triumvirate is Prawit, who is nine years older than him and always outranked him in the army.

The first clear sign of cracks among the comrades was the drama of the previous no-confidence debate last September. Prawit’s notorious henchman and political fixer Thamanat Prompow, a cartoonishly corrupt political gangster with a fake PhD who spent four years in jail in Australia for smuggling heroin, was feverishly plotting to topple Prayut by persuading a faction of disgruntled Palang Pracharat MPs to vote against him. As part of the conspiracy, Thaksin Shinawatra was offered the possibility of amnesty if he agreed not to stand in the way of Prawit replacing Prayut. The plot unravelled when Prayut found out about it and launched a counteroffensive to save his premiership, forcing Prawit to pull the plug. You can read my full account of the saga here.

The main reason for the plotting was a conflict over control of the Ministry of Interior. Control of the ministry is seen as one of the biggest prizes in Thai politics, because it enables the incumbent party to exert control over the nationwide network of district chiefs, local officials and village headmen whose assistance can deliver millions of votes. It also offers awesome opportunities for embezzlement on an epic scale and dispensing patronage and bribes using taxpayer money. Anupong has been interior minister since the 2014 coup, but like Prayut he is not a member of Palang Pracharat and so the party has been cut off from all the opportunities that holding the ministry would provide. Thamanat, an inveterate schemer and master of the political dark arts, wanted Anupong replaced by a member of Palang Pracharat — ideally himself — and Prawit, who is leader of the party, agreed. But Anupong refused to budge from the position, and Prayut backed him. The three Ps had never been more divided.

Relations between Prayut and Prawit have been painfully awkward since September. Publicly they insist everything is fine. But everybody knows it’s inconceivable that Thamanat would have launched the plot without Prawit’s backing. Privately, Prayut is well aware that his “big brother” Prawit had planned to topple him and may well try to do so again at the opportune moment. Despite being prime minister, Prayut is isolated because Prawit controls Palang Pracharat and has been playing a double game.

Following the failed plot, Prayut fired Thamanat and another key Prawit ally, Narumon Pinyosinwat, for disloyalty, but Prawit pointedly allowed them to remain in their key roles in Palang Pracharat, as secretary-general and treasurer respectively. Prawit also appointed an old ally, the sinister retired general Vit Thephasdin Na Ayutthaya, as head of the Palang Pracharat strategy committee. Vit is notorious for his links to organised crime, and also has longstanding ties with Thaksin. Prawit was professing loyalty to Prayut but his actions regarding Palang Pracharat told a very different story.

Thamanat eventually left Palang Pracharat on January 19 this year along with 20 MPs loyal to him. The official story is that the party expelled him for making unreasonable demands. As usual when Palang Pracharat shenanigans are afoot, the question of whether to kick out Thamanat’s faction was discussed at a meeting at the plush headquarters of Prawit’s patronage machine, the Five Provinces Bordering Forest Preservation Foundation inside the 1st Infantry Regiment headquarters on Vibhavadi Rangsit Road, with the party’s 17 executive committee members and 61 of its MPs. Of the 78 people present, 63 voted to expel Thamanat’s renegade faction.

But the truth is that Thamanat engineered his own departure in collusion with Prawit. Palang Pracharat had just lost two by-elections, in Chumpon and Songkhla, on January 16. Allies of Prayut blamed Thamanat who had made ill-advised comments urging voters to choose candidates with the right family name and plenty of wealth, comments seized upon by the Democrats who won both seats. It was becoming increasingly difficult for Prawit to protect Thamanat in Palang Pratcharat given his open defiance of Prayut, and the gaffe ahead of the by-elections was the final straw. They both agreed it was time for Thamanat to leave the party, which would also enable him more freedom to challenge Prayut in future if Prawit’s plans required it.

If Thamanat and his allies had resigned from Palang Pracharat they would have ceased to be MPs, but because they were expelled by a meeting of executive committee members and MPs in which more than three quarters voted to kick them out, under Article 101 (9) of the constitution they were allowed to remain in parliament as long as they found another party within 30 days. Ahead of the vote, allies of Thamanat leaked information to Thai Enquirer stressing that he wanted to leave. Prawit was conspicuously silent about the whole episode and was not present when the votes were cast. He left it to deputy party leader Paiboon Nititawan to speak to the media about what had happened. The whole thing was just a charade, with Prawit pulling the strings behind the scenes as usual.

Sure enough, the expelled rebels took over the the Setthakij Thai aka Thai Economic party, which was essentially just an empty shell with no MPs, formed in 2020. In March, retired general Vit become party leader with Thamanat as secretary-general. But the pair soon clashed over strategy — Vit wanted the party to remain firmly part of the ruling coalition, while Thamanat wanted a more ambiguous stance to gain maximum leverage. Tensions between the two men worsened in May after Thamanat said he intended to have dinner with representatives of Pheu Thai and the so-called “Group of 16” bloc of MPs to discuss another potential bid to topple Prayut at the next no-confidence debate.

Somewhat confusingly, despite its name, the Group of 16 had up to 30 MPs by this stage — the representatives of all the microparties in the coalition plus some opportunistic rogue Palang Pracharat MPs led by Pichet Sathirachawal. As columnist Veera Pra­teepchaikul explained in the Bangkok Post, the group “has no fixed loy­alty” and dances to the tune of the highest bidder:

The mem­bers are like mer­ce­nar­ies whose loy­alty de­pends on which pay­mas­ters are of­fer­ing them the most re­mu­ner­a­tion. For the past three-plus years in par­lia­ment, the group has barely done any­thing that could be called an achieve­ment in their pu­ta­tive role as law­mak­ers. The only time they have a voice and are of value is when their votes can be the de­cid­ing fac­tor, say for the pas­sage of a fi­nan­cial bill or after a cen­sure de­bate like the one on Satur­day. For a gov­ern­ment with only a slim ma­jor­ity in the Lower House, their votes are a god­send.

Thamanat has had close relations with the microparties for years because after the 2019 general election it was his job to bribe and cajole them to join the coalition, and to manage the relationship with them and keep them onside. He caused uproar among the microparty leaders in September 2019 with another of his frequent gaffes, when he compared his role to being a “monkey keeper” whose job was to “keep feeding them bananas all the time”. He mostly managed to salvage the situation by shovelling even more bribes to them. Throughout his time at Palang Pracharat he kept them well fed with metaphorical bananas.

Thamanat was a member of Pheu Thai before switching to Palang Pracharat in 2018, and has repeatedly refused to rule out returning to his former party. Sources say he is in relatively regular contact with Thaksin. Despite the failure of the conspiracy last September, Thamanat never gave up plotting to topple Prayut by persuading the microparties and rebel Palang Pracharat MPs to switch sides. The plan was for Prawit to become prime minister and Thamanat to get the interior ministry. Thamanat would orchestrate everything by ensuring enough defections, and Thaksin would be secretly promised an amnesty if he told Pheu Thai not to block Prawit becoming premier.

But Thamanat has repeatedly sabotaged himself due to his recklessness and chronic lack of subtlety. Even though Prawit supported his schemes from the sidelines, the deputy prime minister could not be seen openly plotting against his old comrade in the three Ps. Thamanat thought that loudly broadcasting his dinner date with Pheu Thai and the Group of 16 would give him the leverage to force Prayut to appoint him as interior minister, but his behaviour was just too provocative and Prayut told him to abandon the plan. Vit tried to rein him in too.

Thamanat was becoming increasingly unhinged and erratic as his plans fell apart. He was spiralling so far out of control that not even Prawit could handle him. On May 24, Thamanat staged a coup in the Setthakij Thai party, resigning along with 14 others from the 22-member executive board to trigger the replacement of Vit as leader. Thamanat had wanted to be party chief from the start, but had initially heeded Prawit’s advice to allow the more experienced and less volatile Vit take the role instead. Within two months that arrangement had already collapsed as Thamanat unravelled.

Thamanat formally became leader on June 10, and immediately declared that the party would not guarantee its support to any cabinet minister except Prawit in the no-confidence debate, saying: “To be honest, all of the ministers said to be the targets should have a cause for concern except general Prawit.” Not all his former allies were happy about the toppling of Vit, and Thamanat’s more combative approach, and the size of the Setthakij Thai bloc in parliament dwindled to 16 MPs.

Thamanat suffered another blow when Setthakij Thai was thrashed in a by-election in Lampang on July 10, more than 20,000 votes behind the winning candidate from the small opposition Seri Ruam Thai Party. His reputation as a brilliant — if exceptionally dodgy — political operator was built on the belief that he was superb at mobilising votes through whatever means necessary and delivering election victories against the odds. This was why his allies always forgave him for all his lies and crimes and recklessness — they believed he could deliver results. But suddenly faith in his abilities was starting to evaporate. His relationship with Prawit was strained, his winning touch had deserted him, and he was making one misjudgement after another.

Thamanat claimed his party had lost because of its affiliation with Prayut and the ruling coalition. The two Setthakij Thai MPs who had posts as government whips resigned on July 12, and Thamanat announced that the party was formally leaving the coalition and joining the opposition. He confirmed that Setthakij Thai would vote against all ministers except Prawit in the no-confidence debate.

Thamanat was gambling that his announcement would be a bombshell that would strike fear into Prayut and rally more disgruntled Palang Pracharat and microparty MPs to his side, so the opposition had a serious chance of pulling off a shock defeat of the government. But his antics increasingly reeked of desperation rather than careful calculation. As Erich Parpart wrote at Thai Enquirer, Thamanat “seems to be fumbling in every major decision he has been making ever since he quit the ruling coalition”. Olarn Thinbangtiew, a political scientist from Burapha University, told the Bangkok Post that Thamanat’s “actions have made him lose political credibility” and predicted more MPs would desert his faction. In comments to Thai PBS, Wanwichit Boonprong, a political science lecturer at Rangsit University, said:

His problem is that he is arrogant and overestimates his abilities. In fact, it was Prawit who gave him his power and charisma. That’s why he rose so fast to become a larger-than-life figure. He was given too much status.

Ahead of the debate, Thaksin made some deliberately provocative comments in one of his regular chats on the Clubhouse app, where he appears using the pseudonym Tony Woodsome. He said Chadchart’s landslide win in the Bangkok gubernatorial election could be a harbinger of a similar large victory for Pheu Thai in the general election next year. “I would like to warn that the next elections could be like what happened in Bangkok,” Thaksin declared, in an obvious attempt to goad the government.

On July 18, the day before the no-confidence debate was due to begin, Prawit held a meeting of Palang Pracharat MPs. He ordered all of them to vote for 11 ministers targeted in the debate. According to several sources who were there, as the meeting was drawing to a close, one member of the executive committee said there was widespread support for a cabinet reshuffle in which Anupong would be replaced by Prawit. At least five party MPs raised their hands to support the idea. Prawit tried to shut down the discussion, saying:

Well, it is an opinion. I'll talk to the prime minister about this, but right now everyone must vote for the premier and 10 cabinet ministers.

It was a clear signal that there is still significant discontent in Palang Pracharat that Anupong remains interior minister — discontent that Prawit shares.

When the debate began on Tuesday, July 19, it was clear that Prayut was still stewing about Thaksin’s comments on Clubhouse. The prime minister, who gave a typically blustering and self-pitying performance throughout the week, tried to attack Pheu Thai on the first day of the debate last Tuesday for not bringing Thaksin back to Thailand to fight the politically motivated corruption charges against him. In his response to Pheu Thai leader Cholnan Srikaew calling him an enemy of democracy, he bleated:

As the prime minister, I don't know everything. I am not good at everything. I am not someone you might say is the cleverest person. But where is he now? I know you may admire some people who previously held this position and praise them for doing a better job than me. That's fine. Just bring them back if you can.

In a response in his next Clubhouse chat, Thaksin gleefully twisted the knife, promising once again that he will return some day, and joking about his ability to live rent-free in Prayut’s head:

I'll come back for sure. I'll definitely come back… If he asks where I am, I'll say I'm always on his mind. When reporters ask him ... or when there is a parliament debate, I'm the first on his mind.

It’s remarkable that 14 years after Thaksin went into exile, and eight years after Yingluck was deposed in a coup, the regime continues to try to blame the Shinawatra clan for the kingdom’s problems.

One of the most intriguing episodes in the debate was on Wednesday, when Prawit was being grilled by Move Forward party-list MP Thiratchai Panthumat over alleged interference in the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) and Customs Department investigations into the infamous scandal that erupted when photographs showed he had a collection of more than 20 luxury watches worth millions of dollars which he never declared in mandatory asset statements and claimed he had borrowed from a friend who then conveniently died.

During his response to the allegations, Prawit denied having anything to do with the 2014 coup. “I give you the coup maker. Here he is,” declared Prawit, pointing at Prayut who proudly raised his hand in acknowledgement among much awkward laughter.

Prawit also denied that he was part of an alliance with Prayut and Anupong “Pok“ Paochinda, even though the so-called “three Ps” led the most powerful faction of the army for many years and have dominated Thai politics since the coup. According to Prawit:

I was not involved in the coup. Neither was Anupong… Only the prime minister staged it. I didn’t even know when it was planned. It’s rubbish to talk about the “three Ps” alliance.

Obviously this is totally untrue. All of the three Ps have frequently boasted that they are an unbreakable band of brothers who fought together in the army and then in politics for decades. Prawit was the main mastermind of the deep state conspiracy during 2013 and 2014 that eventually toppled Yingluck. What’s interesting is that he is now suddenly trying to distance himself from his old comrade Prayut. It was a further sign that support is ebbing away from the prime minister and that there are tensions among the three Ps.

During the debate, Prayut was also photographed reading from some crudely written bullet points that appeared to claim the military had played a key role in coping with the coronavirus. He also insisted that the regime had been widely praised for its handling of the pandemic, even though its performance was actually a disaster.

As usual Move Forward MP Rangsiman Rome made a strong contribution, presenting significant new evidence of corruption in the police and military.

In Saturday’s vote, ministers had to win the support of more than half of parliament. Because there are currently only 477 MPs rather than the full complement of 500, this meant they needed 239 votes to survive.

As the vote approached, Thamanat was still trying to persuade others to vote against Prayut, but with no success. The Group of 16, who Thamanat had been trying to persuade to join him, announced they would support most ministers, except social development and human security minister Chuti Krairiksh of the Democrat Party and deputy finance minister Santi Promphat, who is also Palang Pracharat’s new secretary general. Both men faced highly credible and detailed allegations of corruption during the debate. So did labour minister Suchart Chomklin of Palang Pracharat who was accused of enriching himself with bribes paid to facilitate the import of migrant workers, and transport minister Saksayam Chidchob, brother of the notorious Newin, accused of concealing his ownership of a construction company that was awarded contracts worth more than a billion baht by his ministry.

Meanwhile, the Democrats were riven by internal disputes, with one faction urging MPs to vote against Chuti, and a rival faction threatening to vote against party leader Jurin Laksanawisit, the commerce minister, in retaliation.

The evening before the vote, Prawit met the members of the Group of 16 and urged them to vote for all 11 ministers facing censure. According to a leaked screenshot of a LINE chat that was circulated on social media, the MPs were offered 100,000 baht each as an inducement. By now it was clear that Thamanat had failed to get the numbers he needed to unseat any ministers. The government was safe.

When the votes were cast on Saturday, Prawit had by far the best score, with the most votes of support and least no-confidence votes of any minister. His outperformance was mainly due to the support of Thamanat’s Setthakij Thai faction, which was still pledging loyalty to Prawit. Also, Prawit is widely regarded as the most powerful player in the government, and nobody in the ruling coalition wants to annoy him.

Prayut was the fourth best performer, behind Prawit and the Bhumjai Thai duo of Anutin Charnvirakul and Saksayam Chidchob. It was striking that he had 12 fewer votes of support that Prawit, and 13 more votes of no-confidence.

At the bottom of the list was Democrat Party leader Jurin, who got just 241 votes of confidence, surviving by a margin of just three votes. The incessant infighting in the party was mainly to blame, plus the fact the Democrats are widely disliked by their coalition partners.

Anupong performed badly too, with only 245 votes of support and 212 votes of no-confidence. It was the highest number of no-confidence votes any of the ministers received. Six Palang Pracharat MPs, all from Samut Prakan, voted against him, along with the opposition and Thamanat’s faction. If Thamanat had managed to flip another seven coalition MPs, he would have toppled Anupong, and achieved what he wanted — a new interior minister. But he failed.

Here’s a Bangkok Post graphic showing the voting for all ministers.

All of Thamanat’s bluster and scheming had achieved nothing. He was enraged that the Group of 16, who he had been feeding “bananas” for years, in the form of large monthly payments during his time at Palang Pracharat, had failed to back him when he needed them. He decided to take revenge, regardless of the consequences.

A few hours after the vote, Thamanat leaked several LINE messages and banking receipts that appeared to show that the Group of 16 had not just accepted bribes ahead of Saturday’s vote, they had been receiving monthly payments for years. He shared screenshots of bank documents and LINE chats that showed some of the Group of 16 had been receiving payments of 100,000 baht a month for years.

It was no surprise to anybody that this faction of mercenary MPs had been paid regularly to secure their votes, but it was immensely embarrassing to the government and the corrupt politicians they were being to have everything exposed. Some of the Group of 16, such as Khathathep Techadejruangkul, leader of the Pheu Chart Thai Party, tried to claim the evidence was fabricated by Thamanat:

He wanted the Group of 16 to do his bidding and when he couldn't, he created a fuss. There are no facts and this is a fabrication of documents. Seniors are looking into this and it will end soon.

But the evidence is almost certainly genuine, not least because the person who leaked it — Thamanat — knows all about secret payments to microparties because he was the person responsible for agreeing the payments. The leaked documents also implicate Prawit, because the transactions were handled by his Five Provinces Bordering Forest Preservation Foundation. Thamanat’s reckless decision to get revenge on the “monkeys” he had been feeding with “bananas” for years didn’t just damage them — it damaged himself and Prawit too.

The bribes were a clear violation of anti-corruption rules which require MPs to declare any gift worth more than 3,000 baht. In theory, those implicated could face three years in jail, a fine of 60,000 baht, and a 10-year ban from politics. The royalist activist Srisuwan Janya, who relentlessly files complaints and lawsuits about corruption in politics, has pledged to petition the NACC about the scandal.

But there is little probability that the case will go anywhere — the pliant NACC and judiciary will ensure that no action is taken. Prawit says he is not worried and expects the NACC to clear him just as they did over the wristwatch scandal. “Let them take it up. It'll be like my watches case,” he said. “I'm not afraid.”

On Monday, Prawit went to Samut Prakan to meet the six rebel Palang Pracharat MPs who voted against Anupong in the debate. One of them, Krungsriwilai Sutinphuak, prostrated at Prawit’s feet as he arrived. Afterwards, as usual, Prawit declared that the dispute had been settled and everything was fine.

Prayut has insisted there will be no cabinet reshuffle. Anupong says he’s not worried about the pressure to remove him from the interior ministry:

If there should be a cabinet shake-up, it is up to the prime minister to decide. There's no reason to fear. No matter what changes may be in store, the fellowship between the “three P” generals will never break.

But in fact, the fellowship is already broken. Prayut and Anupong can’t trust Prawit, and it remains unclear if Palang Pracharat will even nominate Prayut as its prime ministerial candidate at the next election. He is deeply unpopular, in stark contrast to the rock star status enjoyed by Chadchart. He has no real political powerbase — he’s totally dependent on Prawit — and he no longer has any influence over the military. The rise of the democracy movement and mounting calls for reform of the monarchy have transformed the political landscape. Prayut is a dinosaur who is approaching extinction.

Thamanat has burned his bridges, and strained his alliance with his political patron Prawit. His erratic behaviour has driven away many of his supporters and his Setthakij Thai party has little hope of winning many seats at the general election.

Pheu Thai looks set to perform strongly, and although it will struggle to win an overall majority, particularly with the new party list calculation, it is likely to be able to form a coalition with Move Forward and some smaller parties. But this may lead to constitutional deadlock because the prime minister they propose has to be approved not just by parliament but also by the 250 appointed senators who are mostly virulently anti-Thaksin and hate Move Forward for alleged anti-monarchism. To form a workable government some kind of compromise will have to be found. Thaksin may have to accept an establishment candidate. It’s not even inconceivable that Prawit becomes prime minister — Move Forward would be highly unlikely to serve in a government led by him, but parties like Bhumjai Thai could be persuaded to join the coalition, and having Prawit at the helm would help reassure the old elite that Thaksin’s influence can be controlled. The alternative is a new bout of political instability as royalists and the military scheme to bring down the government.

But Prawit is already 76 and in visibly poor health. He struggles to even walk and has to be assisted by aides. If he ends up as prime minister it means more political stagnation for Thailand.

Thaksin is desperate to come home, and will be hoping that Pheu Thai win enough seats to give him leverage to secure a deal. He’s not really interested in progressive policies or reform, and is mainly just focused on himself and his family. He wants to be rehabilitated in Thailand before he dies.

On his birthday last Saturday, after the votes had been cast following the no-confidence debate, Thaksin spoke to Red Shirt supporters in Korat in a video call. Thaksin promised it would be the last birthday he spends outside Thailand.

“This year will be the last,” he told the cheering crowd. “See you all in Thailand next year.”

Extraordinary inhumanity

On the final day of the debate last Friday, Bencha Saengchan of the Move Forward Party gave a speech calling for the release of all political prisoners. As Thai PBS reported:

No one should be arrested or incarcerated for expressing a political opinion which differs from the government’s, especially a government which came to power as the result of a coup, said the opposition MP, adding that the first step towards political reconciliation in the country is to release these people.

As her speech drew to a close, Move Forward MPs held up pictures of detained activists Netiporn “Bung” Sanesangkhom and Nutthanit “Baipor” Duangmusit who have been denied bail despite facing severe health problems after more than eight weeks on hunger strike.

Netiporn, 26, and Nutthanit, 21, affiliated with activist group Thaluwang, which roughly means “break the palace”, held an event at Siam Paragon mall on February 8 surveying shoppers on their opinion about the disruption caused by royal motorcades, which are notorious for causing severe traffic disruption in Bangkok. Activists have held similar polls on royal issues around Bangkok this year, with passers-by invited to vote by placing coloured stickers under the statement they agree with.

At Siam Paragon, Netiporn and Nutthanit were obstructed and harassed several times by police and mall security guards, but several people at the mall managed to vote, all of whom agreed that royal motorcades cause problems. Siam Paragon is a particularly sensitive place for protests because it is part owned by the Crown Property Bureau and Princess Sirindhorn, and includes the flagship store of Princess Sirivannavari’s fashion brand.

After leaving the mall, the two women headed towards Sirindhorn’s residence Sra Pathum palace to deliver the results. They were blocked by police and their poll was ripped from their hands.

For having the effrontery to ask for people’s views on royal motorcades, Netiporn and Nutthanit were charged with lèse majesté, sedition and failure to comply with police orders. They were released on bail on the condition that they wore electronic ankle bracelets, avoid doing anything that might offend the monarchy, or organise any more protests.

But they held more public surveys — on land expropriation by the monarchy on March 13 at Victory Monument, on whether people wanted to pay taxes to maintain the monarchy on March 31 at the Ratchaprasong intersection, and on whether the king should be able to use his powers however he wishes on April 18 at Chatuchak MRT station.

On April 28 police raided their apartment and arrested them, and the Bangkok South Criminal Court formally revoked their bail on May 3. They have been detained at the Central Women’s Correctional Institution ever since.

Thaluwang activists have always argued — reasonably — that asking questions should not be a crime. Netiporn and Nutthanit began a hunger strike on June 2 in protest at their continued detention.

When they were brought to court on July 18 for a witness hearing, Nutthanit was so weak that she was unable to walk and could barely communicate. Her hands and legs were shaking and her nails were turning purple. During the hearing, Nutthanit lost consciousness. Netiporn complained of a severe stomach ache. Their lawyers asked for them to be transferred urgently to the nearest hospital, but prison officials tried to insist that they be taken to the Medical Correctional Institution. After a volunteer medic confirmed that they needed to see a doctor as soon as possible, the judge overruled the prison officials and they were sent to Lerdsin Hospital. Doctors there examined the women but declined to admit them to hospital, and they were transferred to the Medical Correctional Institution.

According to Thai Lawyers for Human Rights, as reported by Prachatai:

The two activists refused to be treated by the Medical Correctional Institution, so they were taken back to the Women Central Correctional Institution. Netiporn told her lawyer that Nutthanit had no energy, but they still had to undergo physical examination before going back to their cell. She said that four people were holding Nutthanit and taking off her clothes to examine her. Nutthanit also told her lawyer that she asked the prison officials not to take off her underwear because she was on her period, but they did anyway, causing blood stains all over her legs. She told the lawyer that she would like this to be reported as she does not wish to be repeatedly violated.

They spent Tuesday night at the prison infirmary… Other inmates working at the infirmary had to carry Nutthanit up to the second floor, and that her blood pressure was found to be lower than normal, even though doctors at Lerdsin Hospital said her blood pressure was normal.

Despite their condition, judge Santi Chukitsappaisan at the South Bangkok Criminal Court denied them bail on July 19, saying their health was normal.

It was an absurd and shockingly inhumane decision, and the regime is playing a very dangerous game. After more than eight weeks on hunger strike, Netiporn and Nutthanit are clearly extremely unwell, and there are concerns about how much longer they can survive. If a young woman whose only crime was asking questions about the monarchy dies in detention, there will be worldwide condemnation, and it could ignite a new wave of mass protests.

Spying on citizens

The regime’s use of the notorious Israeli spyware Pegasus to hack the mobile phones of pro-democracy Thai activists, academics and politicians was another major issue raised during last week’s debate.

Back in November last year, Apple warned several activists, academics and politicians that their phones had been hacked by “state-sponsored attackers”. The technology giant is fighting an escalating technological battle to protect the privacy of iPhone users against spyware, above all Pegasus, which was developed by Israeli company NSO and has been widely abused to target politicians and activists all over the world.

NSO claims it only sells the spyware to regimes that respect the rule of law, for legitimate operations targeting crime and terrorism, but there is overwhelming evidence they have provided it to numerous authoritarian regimes and dictatorships — including Thailand.

The Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto, which has developed cutting-edge expertise in detecting spyware on mobile phones, issued a report last week in collaboration with Thai NGOs iLaw and DigitalReach showing that at least 30 activists, academics and politicians had been targeted by Pegasus between October 2020 and November 2021. They provided a graphic showing those who had been affected:

The list includes many of the most prominent pro-democracy activists but the scale of the hacking is likely to be far larger than we know — as Citizen Lab’s John Scott-Railton noted, the revelations so far are likely to be just the “tip of the iceberg”. Many Thai activists and politicians including Rangsiman Rome and Move Forward leader Pita Limjaroenrat use Android phones, and it’s not currently possible to detect if these devices have been compromised by Pegasus.

During the no-confidence debate, Move Forward MP Phicharn Chaowapatanawong said five more hacking victims had already been discovered — his Move Forward colleagues Bencha Saengchantra, Chaithawat Tulathon and Pakorn Areekul, as well as Pannika Wanich and Piyabutr Saengkanokkul who were founding members of the Future Forward Party and after being banned from politics after the regime disbanded the party are now leaders of the Progressive Movement.

The Royal Thai Police have formally denied using Pegasus spyware to hack the phones of democracy activists. Deputy police spokesman colonel Kissana Phathanacharoen declared:

The Royal Thai Police have never used any spyware to violate anyone’s rights as suggested in those news reports and rumours spread on social media. The RTP strictly follow laws and regulations.

But during the debate on Tuesday, Chaiwut Thanakamanusorn, the minister of digital economy and society, admitted for the first time that the Thai regime uses spyware to “listen into or access a mobile phone to view the screen, monitor conversations and messages”. But interestingly, according to the Reuters report on his comments, “he added his ministry does not have the legal authority to use such software and did not specify which government agency does”.

This admission clearly got him into trouble because on Friday he comically tried to deny saying things that he clearly had said. He claimed he had just stated he knew that Pegasus existed and was used by some countries around the world, but had never said it was used by Thailand, declaring: “I said I knew of a system that is used for security and drug suppression but I did not say that it existed in the Thai government.” To make Chaiwat’s week even worse, he was also publicly accused of marital infidelity during the debate.

Prayut denied having any knowledge of the spyware, saying: “Regarding Pegasus, I don't know about it. You always say I’m not smart. I have no need to spy.

All these denials are of course absurd — there is incontrovertible evidence that Pegasus is being used to target dozens of people in the democracy movement, confirmed by forensic examination of the phones of the victims. For the government to deny it knows anything about the hacking is clearly nonsense, and Chaiwut’s awkward U-turn gave the game away.

But it may indeed be true that it’s not the government or the police who are actually behind the spying.

Since he became king in 2016, Vajiralongkorn has created a personal army and security force, the Royal Guard 904, with more than 100,000 police and soldiers who undergo special training to indoctrinate them and report directly to him. The force includes several units tasked with monitoring the internet and investigating anybody perceived to be a threat to the monarchy, and operates separately from the regular military and police. It’s highly plausible that Vajiralongkorn’s personal security forces have been using Pegasus to hack the phones of supporters of democracy — they have unlimited funds and routinely operate outside the law, including by murdering at least 10 activists who had fled to other Southeast Asian countries.

Other murderous monarchies have also used Pegasus to target activists, including Saudi Arabia, which used the spyware to monitor allies of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi who was killed and dismembered in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in October 2018. The sheikhdoms of the United Arab Emirates are also prolific users, and Dubai ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum used Pegasus to spy on his estranged wife Princess Hala and her associates during their acrimonious divorce.

The Citizen Lab report didn’t mention the probability that Vajiralongkorn’s palace security force is using Pegasus, because it’s illegal to even just say so in Thailand. But they did mention three other Thai entities that are probable users of Pegasus, and which are confirmed to have also been users of complementary products which enable the interception of mobile phone calls and the real-time tracking of a phone’s location, sold by an NSO-affiliated firm called Circles.

One is the Narcotics Suppression Bureau, the division of the Royal Thai Police responsible for cracking drown on the illegal drugs trade, and which would have a legitimate reason for using NSO and Circle products in the fight against organised crime.

The other two are far more shadowy. The Internal Security Operations Command is a sprawling and secretive military organisation which claims to be dedicated to preserving national security, protecting the monarchy and promoting national unity, and which has tentacles that reach throughout the kingdom. It routinely uses political propaganda, information warfare, intimidation, coercion, and black ops. In the words of Puangthong Pawakapan, an expert on the organisation:

ISOC has branches in Bangkok and all 77 provinces. It has branches at all geographic levels: nationally, regionally, provincially all the way down to the villages. The operations are extensive. ISOC is intent on controlling the thoughts and political activities of civilians.

The third entity mentioned in the Citizen Lab report is the Military Intelligence Bureau, another wing of the army that also specialises in snooping on alleged threats to national security and disseminating propaganda and misinformation.

Prayut is director of ISOC and made organisational changes after the 2014 to expand its powers in the hope of crushing dissent against the junta. As a former army chief he is also well acquainted with military intelligence operations. It is simply not credible that he is unaware of the use of Pegasus to target the democracy movement.

What is clear is that some of the most malign entities in Thailand are using spyware to try to destroy the democracy movement.

Vote for me, I’m a notorious gangster

The Pheu Thai Party has high hopes of winning the next election, but it remains tainted by all the worst old elements of Thai politics and has never presented a coherent policy agenda for reform. It exists mainly to achieve leverage to allow Thaksin to strike a deal to return to Thailand, and as a patronage machine that attracts unprincipled politicians because it promises good prospects of electoral success. The likely nomination of Thaksin’s daughter Paetongtarn as the party’s prime ministerial candidate shows that Pheu Thai remains a political vehicle for the Shinawatra clan, and the recent announcement of the party’s first 21 election candidates in Bangkok provided more depressing evidence that Thailand’s main opposition party remains mired in nepotism and corruption and has little credible claim to any moral high ground.

Among the candidates is Wan Yoobamrung, second son of Chalerm Yoobamrung who is among the most unpleasant and corrupt of the previous generation of Thai politicians, standing out even in the grim cesspit of old-school Thai politics for his relentless lack of principle and impressive alacrity with embezzlement and graft. Chalerm began his career with the Royal Thai Police and after reaching the rank of captain, entered politics, initially with the Democrat Party. Like most politicians of his generation he switched his allegiance several times to whatever party seemed most expedient at the time. He fled to Scandinavia for a while after the 1991 military coup to evade accusations of corruption and unusual wealth. By the start of the 20th century he was an ally of Thaksin although he didn’t formally commit to affiliating to a Shinawatra party until he joined the People’s Power Party in 2007. The combative cigar-chomping political godfather preferred to maintain a semi-independent bloc of MPs for maximum leverage, much like Thammanat is doing today.

A couple of decades ago, Chalerm’s three sons Artharn, Wanchalerm and Duangchalerm were notorious in Thailand’s nightlife scene for their predilection for random violence. They didn’t really bother with their day jobs — Artharn and Wanchalearm joined the police but were fired after it was discovered they had forged documents claiming exemption from military service. Their father and his powerful allies ensured they got away with it. Their main activity in their privileged lives was going to nightclubs with a retinue of thugs and bodyguards, getting uproariously drunk, and savagely assaulting anyone they took a dislike to, for fun. As Time magazine reported in 2001:

Along the strip of hostess bars, cavernous discos and massage palaces of Bangkok’s Ratchadapisek Road, the Yubamrung brothers are the most infamous of the brawling brats of the Thai elite. During the past five years, Arthan, 30, Wanchalerm, 25, and Duangchalerm have been involved in at least a dozen bar fights and shootings.

This was a massive underestimate — the brothers were involved in brawls and beatings on an almost weekly basis.

In 2000 a prosecutor who was investigating the three Yubamrung boys was shot and wounded by a hitman who had been hired to kill him. Chalerm denied any responsibility, declaring:

A man like me does not need to hire anyone to kill someone else. I would do it myself.

The savagery of the brothers behaviour on their regular drunken trawls through Bangkok nightspots meant that sooner or later somebody was probably going to get killed, and sure enough, it eventually happened on October 29, 2001, at the Club Twenty coyote bar, where hostesses danced on tables and flirted to entertain wealthy men. Suwichai Rodwimud, a respected Crime Suppression Division police sergeant major who had been awarded the Crimebuster of the Year award, was celebrating at the club with colleagues after cracking a high-profile kidnapping case. Everybody was drinking and dancing, and late in the evening, Duangchalerm Yubamrung accused Suwichai of accidentally treading on his toe. A scuffle broke out and Duangchalerm told members of his entourage to restrain Suwichai, and said: “Do you know who my father is?” Then he pulled out a pistol and shot Suwichai in the head at pointblank range.

The brazen murder in a crowded nightclub was witnessed by dozens of people, several of whom identified Wanchalearm as one of the people who pinioned Suwichai’s arms before he was shot. The killing was egregiously shocking even in a country where people have long become wearily accustomed to the abusive antics and impunity of the rich kids of the elite. "Never before have Thais been this outraged over a murder case," said The Nation newspaper in a front-page editorial.

Facing arrest for murder, Duangchalerm fled to Cambodia via a border casino in Poipet that straddles the border. Meanwhile, Chalerm enlisted the help of all his most powerful allies including Thaksin, bribed and intimidated witnesses, and paid an impoverished stooge to take the rap instead by claiming he had pulled the trigger even though multiple witnesses saw Duangchalerm firing the fatal shot. He disposed of the suspected murder weapon — a pistol registered in his name — and claimed he had lost it. Chalerm travelled regularly to meet his fugitive son on the Cambodian border, despite claiming he had no idea of Duangchalerm’s whereabouts.

Once Chalerm was confident he’d paid enough bribes and done enough dirty tricks to ensure a favourable verdict, Duangchalerm emerged from hiding and surrendered to police. He was released on bail, and to nobody’s surprise but widespread national outrage he was acquitted of all charges in March 2004. The judges cited a lack of evidence and contradictory witness statements — even though dozens of people had seen Duangchalerm killing a respected police officer in a crowded nightclub, Chalerm had successfully induced enough witnesses to recant their initial statements to provide the pliant judges with an excuse to acquit him. Wanchalearm was cleared of the most serious charge of being an accessory to murder, although he was given a one-month suspended jail sentence and a 1,000 baht fine for assaulting Suwichai.

Duangchalerm was kicked out of the army when he went on the run but was accepted back in 2008. In 2012 he transferred to The Royal Thai Police, supposedly because of his expert marksmanship skills. Evidently, being a notorious cop killer who evaded justice was no barrier to being appointed to a senior position in the Bangkok Metropolitan Police Bureau as long as your dad is powerful enough. Chalerm insisted there was no nepotism involved and his murderous son had been appointed purely on merit:

This is not nepotism but he is a sharp shooter. Duang shoots very well and has 16 certificates. His shooting accuracy is 100 percent while mine is only 98 percent and there aren't many people in Thailand who have perfect shooting accuracy.

Brothel tycoon Chuvit Kamolvisit, who became an MP promising to expose corruption, said Duang’s transfer to the police was an insult to society, and if he really had 100 percent shooting accuracy he should have been sent to the 2012 Olympics in London instead.

Meanwhile, Wanchalearm changed his name to Wan in a comically inadequate attempt to dissociate himself from his scandal-strewn past and was appointed a ministerial adviser in Thaksin’s Thai Rak Thai party. He was embroiled in another controversy in 2017 when a photograph showing Wan and his family gorging on seafood at an upscale restaurant while their maid squatted on the floor went viral on social media. Wan publicly threatened the person who posted the picture, claiming that his maid was only on the floor because there was a shortage of chairs in the restaurant and she was suffering from back pain so preferred to sit on the ground.

In 2018 he was yet again involved in a brutal drunken assault in a nightclub. Wan, his 21-year-old son Archawin and several thugs in their entourage were in a Thonglor club when the spotted somebody they didn’t like — Panuwat Punnarattanakul, the son of a gold shop owner who had apparently quarrelled with Archawin on a previous occasion. Security camera footage showed Wan punching the victim in the face, knocking him to the ground, and then Archawin kicking him. One of Wan’s entourage fired a shot into the air to deter Panuwat’s friends from trying to intervene. Police had plenty of evidence, but as usual with the untouchable Yubamrung clan, Chalerm used his malign influence to ensure all charges were eventually dropped.

Wan and his two brothers are among the ghastliest offspring of Thailand’s political elite, unrepentant thugs and gangsters who evaded facing justice for a litany of crimes thanks to their powerful father. Wan has no discernible talents and the only reason he has been selected as a Pheu Thai election candidate is because of Chalerm’s patronage. Chalerm — who has held multiple cabinet posts over the decades and was a deputy prime minister in the administration of Yingluck Shinawatra — has even boasted that Wan will get a cabinet position too.

If he does get elected and secures a cabinet seat, he will of course be far from the only notorious crook in parliament — every major party has plenty of godfathers, gangsters, grifters and ghouls. But the candidacy of Wan Yubamrung is an insult to voters and shows once again that Pheu Thai has no intention of really reforming politics or rooting out powerful criminal clans from parliament.

The party’s popularity is based mostly on exploiting the Shinawatra brand and the perception that it is possibly slightly less awful and autocratic than the junta vehicle Palang Pracharat and the ossified Democrat Party which has consistently made a mockery of its name by siding with dictators. The fact that the main opposition party is little better than the ruling coalition is a depressing illustration of the sorry state of Thai politics.

Oppressive and unjust

Princess Sirivannavari, the most unpopular of all Vajiralongkorn’s children, has appeared on Thai television being interviewed by a fawning host who grovelled on the floor at her feet as she sat on a chair wearing a Snoopy T-shirt.

The excruciating scenes were reminiscent of the notorious interview of Princess Chulabhorn in April 2011 by Vuthithorn “Woody” Milintachinda who sat on the floor dressed in a tuxedo and bow tie, wept as the princess said the Red Shirt protest the year before had worsened the health of King Bhumibol and Queen Sirikit, and enthusiastically ate some of dog biscuits that Chulabhorn was feeding her pet Pomeranian called Luk Mee. (You can watch a clip of that interview here, and last year I published an article about Thailand’s royal dogs.)

King Chulalongkorn understood more than a century and a half ago that prostration was an archaic custom no longer compatible with international norms and values in a changing world. He abolished prostration in 1873, declaring: “In Siam, the practice of prostration reaffirms the existence of oppression which is unjust.” He noted that other countries where prostration had been practiced in the past, such as China, Japan, Vietnam and parts of India, had all abandoned the custom.

But in Thailand, prostration was revived during the reign of King Bhumibol, and continues to be demanded when Thais are in the presence of senior royals. Thailand is the only place in the world in the 21st century where prostrating on the ground is still expected.

Royalists claim that prostration is “Thai culture” but this is nonsense. Hundreds of years ago almost every country in the world expected ordinary people to debase themselves and grovel in the presence of their rulers, but this demeaning “culture” died away as countries became more advanced and ordinary people began to assert their rights to be treated equally. National culture is not static, it continually evolves, and there is no justification for preserving oppressive practices from the distant past.

Meanwhile, one of the many quirks of Thai royalism is that people are expected to prostrate on the ground when royals are nearby, but to stand up when the royal anthem video is shown in cinemas ahead of movies.

Far-right royal dinosaur Chulcherm Yugala has been berating Chadchart Sittipunt for allegedly failing to ensure that Bangkok cinemas always play the anthem and that everybody stands. Given the popularity of Chadchart and the plummeting reverence for the royals, plus the fact that most Thais don’t bother standing any more because they have no respect for Vajiralongkorn, his intervention just makes him look even more ridiculous.

Scared of a song

The regime is continuing its efforts to scrub all trace of a song by the excellent political musical collective Rap against Dictatorship from the internet. The song, called ปฏิรูป which means reform, was published online in November 2020 and geoblocked in Thailand 12 days later after the regime claimed it contains obscene language and threatened national security.

Last year the rapper Dechathorn Bamrungmuang aka Hockhacker petitioned the Criminal Court to overturn the ruling, but after a new hearing the court reaffirmed its original ruling on July 7. The video remains geoblocked in Thailand on most platforms but you can view it here:

The lyrics include criticisms of the regime for cracking down violently on the democracy movement, and for spending taxpayers’ money on a polygamist while ignoring their demand for reform, which is the main reason the government is so aghast about the song, even though there was no direct mention of Vajiralongkorn.

In response to the latest court ruling, Rap Against Dictatorship said:

Creating anything to reform, improve or change may be difficult in a totalitarian land at this time, but soon the time will come.

The group’s first single and brilliant accompanying video, ประเทศกูมี, has been viewed more than 106 million times on YouTube alone and is one of the world’s greatest political protest songs of the 21st century.

Beware of wearing black today

Today is Vajiralongkorn’s 70th birthday, and police around the country are on alert for anybody dressed in black, which they say is an insult to the monarch. As Prachatai reports, the national police chief, general Suwat Jangyodsuk, chaired a meeting on Tuesday which discussed reports that some activist groups have called on people to wear black for the king’s birthday to show their opposition to the monarch. There is of course no law in Thailand against wearing any particular colour on any particular day, but Suwat said it was “improper” to wear black on Vajiralongkorn’s birthday and told police to be on the lookout for any offenders.

That’s all for this edition, many thanks for reading and for following Secret Siam! 🙏